Hej everybody,

after the crawling last time, why not heck in for a bit of investigation? Author Ron Lundeen's recently founded company Run Amok Games might have just what you've been looking for! Without further ado:

Six Griffons Haunt




This adventure is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 29 pages for this first adventure by Run Amok Games, the new company of Ron Lundeen, so let's check it out!


This being an adventure review, the following text contains massive SPOILERS, so potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.


Still here? Righty right, so essentially we have an investigation of a haunting - the aristocratic, exclusive Six Griffons lodge has seen some hauntings and the PCs stumble across a rather violent manifestation of said haunting. The situation is made more precarious by the fact that the lodge houses a collection of magic/unusual weapons. Before you start sighing and devise ways to deprive the PCs of the stolen weapons, rest assured that they won't waltz out of this adventure with an arsenal of magic weapons.


Hired by the butler/resident scholar of the lodge to find the cause of the unrest before a scheduled dinner of lodge members, the events start to escalate pretty fast. People start dying in rather macabre (and potentially lethal ways for the players), but without accumulating an overdue bodycount. The adventure features some rather interesting twists on the classical haunting that are massive SPOILERS: First of all, the culprit is not the classic undead, but instead a new creature called haunting elemental. Even better, they are only the symptom of the true problem and a corrupt member of the lodge tries to steal what is supposed to be a weapon to grant innumerable riches. The weapon that is confused with the silver-creating instrument of destruction is in fact the true culprit - a weapon cursed by its djinn-creators to forever thirst for the blood of evil creatures: If the weapon's thirst is not sated, the deadly elementals start manifesting. Have I mentioned that one character is a djinn in disguise that can act as a savior if the PCs are stuck?
While format-wise the investigation is rather open, it also contains a timeline and puts some pressure on the PCs to find out the truth without unnecessary dawdling. It should also be noted that the adventure comes with 4 extensive handouts the PCs should analyze (which are consolidated on two pages for ease of printing out in the end) and a gorgeous 4-page full-color map of the lodge. I do have one very minor gripe: The Haunting Elementals. They reminded of of an old Planescape-joke with Berkamentals and quite frankly, could have been other creatures, as they don't feel like elementals to me.


Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column standard and the pdf comes with excessive bookmarks. The beautiful map and b/w-mugshots of the characters herein help to endear both characters and location to the PCs. This adventure is a rather fast-paced investigation with several fail-safes if the PCs get stuck, moderately difficult encounters and an unique flair - following the tradition of Ron Lundeen's Soldragonn Academy (by Headless Hydra Games), the adventure does feature a rather dark sense of humor that does not devolve into a  massacre or truly mature material - indeed, the best way to describe it would be a investigative comedy of manners with a very dark sense of subtle humor. If played right, suspense and smiles at the characters herein go hand in hand, at least they did in my game. My group finished the adventure in one session, meaning that DMs with clever/investigating characters might want to throw in some additional red herrings. This and aforementioned personal preference are the only true gripes I can find, though, resulting in a 5-Rudii verdict - well done! 













Need a dreadful villain to terrorize your PCs?

Raxath'Viz, the creeping Rot



This installment of the Infamous Adversary-line is 30 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 4 pages of advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving 23 pages of content - that's quite a bunch for the low price, so let's check it out!
The pdf kicks off with a bang - a stellar, original, full-page artwork of Raxath'Viz - gorgeous and not something I would have expected for the price point. You'll hear these words more often in this review. The description of Raxath'Viz kicks off with a disturbing, well-written introduction before providing us the statblock of the villain: Raxath'Viz is a Cleric (Hidden Priest)10/Divine Scion 3/Rogue (Trapsmith) 3 and thus has a COMPLEX statblock with a LOT of special abilities. The statblock contains a minor layout error - a part of the statblock is not shaded like the rest of the block. That does not deter from his wide array of abilities or their usability, though, just an optical hick-up. Raxath'Viz has an ambition quite profound - be the instrument of reincarnation for the goddess of disease and become a demi-god himself in the process. In order to accomplish this lofty goal, he has to succeed in 6 profane boons, which are detailed not only with prophecy-like lines, but also how Raxath'Viz plans to accomplish/accomplished them - this prophecy per se could be seen as a seed for a whole campaign, if desired. If you want to use a Raxath'Viz over the course of a campaign, you'll also get an advancement track for him as well as 3 additional plot hooks. Sample lore-DCs are provided to go along the campaign and plot seeds. If you want further ideas n how Raxath'Viz operates, you'll see it in yet another short piece of fiction before we get to his perhaps most valuable ally, Zogulryk the unholy, a male Oytugh Oracle 10 who is the one true ally/friend (if such a word is applicable) the Kobold has. The installment does not end here, though, and instead goes on to provide sample names and personalities for the Festering Lesion, Raxath'Viz rag-tag band of kobold followers. We also get some sample custom traps the clever kobold employs and especially a consuming jack-in-the-box is worthy of Batman's Joker in its twisted humor. Of course, the Kobold also has pets, namely a variety of otyugh-mutations, one of which, the two-headed guardian otyugh, is also presented with a full statblock. Unbelievably, we get even MORE: The profane Vessel of his goddess, a giant CR 20-super otugh remains even after his defeat, waiting for the day when a divinity will emerge from its cancerous growths and posing the final obstacle for the PCs to squash the ambitions of Maramaga, a goddess of pestilence spawned from a barbaric ritualistic druidic sacrifice and her own 2-page write-up is surprisingly compelling in imagery and tone, making her more than yet another deity of disease. The pdf closes with information on a faction of (semi-) unwitting pawns to Raxath'Viz machinations that shall remain unnamed for spoiler's sake as well as a new devastating disease.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good, though not excellent: I noticed this one layout-glitch and an incorrect use of the -eth-suffix for a verb in the prophecy. All in all, though, less than 5 hick-ups, all minor, over 23 pages. Layout is new, different and beautiful - while not as printer-friendly as TPK Games' previous layout, the grey borders make for a visually pleasing reading experience. The artwork of Raxath'Viz is STUNNING. It makes a KOBOLD look intimidating as hell.  The villain per se features a lengthy statblock, and as has been the tradition with TPK Games alongside all other statblocks in this pdf, been excessively hyperlinked to d20pfsrd.com, making usage of the file on a laptop extremely easy. The pdf is also excessively bookmarked and *drumroll* comes with full hero lab support of all the creatures herein - great for the people who use the tool (though I don't). Content-wise, I'll just say: Wow. Temerlyth was a very good villain. Raxath'Viz blows him out of the water. The sheer amount of content provided in this pdf is awesome - the short stories are well-written, Raxath'Viz's statblock is complex, we get unique servants and allies, a new (and cool) goddess, a dread prophecy (including his plans to accomplish it - a potential campaign in itself) and a villain that acts SMART. Oh yeah, and new traps. The only thing anyone could ask for from this file that is not there is statblocks for less accomplished versions of him, but seeing that we get the high-level version, they can potentially be reverse-engineered. This pdf provides a LOT of content for 3 bucks - much more than I would have expected and at a higher quality, too. In fact, I'm going so far as to say that TPK Games have just upped the ante on NPC/Villain-supplements in the low price-range by a considerable amount. While the minor glitches would usually result in about half a star being detracted, the excellent bang-for-buck ratio more than does its share to counter this minor blemish. Thus, my final verdict will be 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - a truly deadly, devious, frightening kobold villain indeed and a great testament to the level with which the Infamous Adversary-line has been improving.
















All right, that's it for now, as always: Thank you for reading my ramblings,


Endzeitgeist out.

The Machu Picchu Temple of the Sun, an Inca ruin from the 1400s. Its dry stone construction still stands to this day. Photograph released into the public domain by Fabricio Guzmán.

With the recent announcement of Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition, D20 Source is coming out of retirement to respect a roleplaying games tradition that’s older than D&D itself: complaining about the old version of the rules.

Personally, I was a big fan of D&D third edition. It was the first version of D&D that I played a proper campaign, and there was a lot of technical consistency to the rules that I could get a grasp on and create meaningful material with. I even wrote 3e material for some major publications.

Over the years, I began finding imperfections in D&D 3e, as did a lot of long-time 3e players. High-level combat took too long without instant-kill effects. Groups needed a proper mix of class roles to succeed, and so on. When 4e was announced in 2007 I looked forward to seeing those issues addressed.

What let me down most about 4e is that it not only failed to solve the worst problems, it only codified and made them worse, while taking out some of the things I liked the most.

Take solos, for example. In 3e, one of the worst combats I ever DMed was an elder earth elemental versus two PCs, a paladin and a monk. It became what’s been nicknamed “padded sumo”, a fight where both sides have lots of hit points and just keep hitting in a boring battle of attrition. 4e didn’t solve this. It just gave lots of hit points to both PCs and solo creatures.

Slow combat in general was the number one problem that 4e failed to solve for me. I gamed online where the limits of communication slow play more than you’d expect. 4e gave PCs more hit points, more combat options and more things to fight, without any way to compensate for the way this made combat turns take longer. At least low-level 3e combat was quick and decisive!

It’s too early to tell exactly what D&D 5th edition will be, but it’s my hope that it’ll be a game that solves the problems a lot of people discovered with both previous editions, and in doing so, unifies the Dungeons & Dragons playerbase that was fragmented by the release of 4th edition. It’ll be interesting to see what the designers come up with.

Hej everybody,

after all this slumming in the mean streets, I figured it would be time for one deadly dungeon-crawl for a change and TPK Games is happy to oblige:

The Sinister Secrets of Silvermote



This adventure is 67 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving a whopping 64 pages of content! Not bad at all, so let's check out the dread laboratory of Temerlyth, the Undying!
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS, thus I encourage potential players to skip ahead to the conclusion.
Let's get ready for some horror-show indeed, for after an encounter with some ogres and drow in the wilderness,  even the entrance of the dungeon is not entirely simple, necessitating the solving of a riddle, which is always nice, at least for me - riddles are often painfully underrepresented in modules and are a welcome diversion from regular crawling. And what a crawl this is!
Let me preface this, by saying this crawl is HARD. Frog God Games hard, with the potential for a clever DM to make it even more challenging and I love this design philosophy. My players tend to waltz through many modules and this provides a challenge indeed. Another thing this module gets, is a sense of antiquity - Temerlyth's ancient elven architecture is mixed with goblin borrows, offering a nice mishmash of elven splendor, goblinoid decay and a mad scientist's lab. Which brings me to lichdom: Once in the day, a lich was the ultimate undead corruption: A being who sought to extend his existence at all costs - in contrast to vampires and other undead, they cannot be brought into life by accident and their willingness to sacrifice  their mortality makes them even more alien and despicable than other undead: Where we can feel pity for shadows, ghosts and wights, project fantasies and Eros on the vampire, these undead still have some relatable characteristic and be it flimsy as the hunger for life. Liches sacrifice willingly the warmth of the touch of a loved one, their sense of smell and taste and any craving but the search for ultimate power behind, making them despicable to even vampires. The ultimate darkness, the utter corruption that perpetuates this decision is something that has, at least in my opinion, often been forgotten in recent publications. Not so here.
Temerlyth's dungeon is the mirror of a disjointed, relentless and obsessive mind with a twisted sense of humor and devious traps that clearly show the amoral stance the lich takes towards mortal life: Several of his traps are actually designed to infect interlopers with lycanthropy, which will promptly be triggered by his moonlight-producing chandeliers and sow confusion and infighting in invading parties. If an approaching party manages to infiltrate the complex at all, that is. The sentinel, a wood giant skeletal champion ranger and the puzzles make already for neat glimpses of the horrors to come. The crawl itself removes mostly about finding 4 crystalline keys to lower mooncrystal bridges via pedestals to a central platform and raise Temerlyth's crowning achievement and work-in-progress, but more on that later.
The elven lich's servants and allies not only include zombie lords, constructs and ghouls (among which is a potentially recruitable ghoulish cleric, who might at least make for an interesting temporal ally), but also a variety of were-bat slaves who consider him some kind of benevolent over-seer. While I have no problems with his rather cool golems, like the bomb-throwing Aclhemy golem, I do think that the equipment of the were-bats is terrible. Perhaps this is intended to reflect Temerlyth's underlying hatred for them, but they and their dire bat allies will be squashed by your PCs. On the other hand, the zombie lord has a terribly over-powered weapon you should be aware of: A magical shovel that can bury the living with a successful attack )grappling and pinning them with +25 CMB and summon the undead. The PCs should not be able to use this item, the potential for abuse is HUGE. If you've read Temerlyth's Infamous Adversary-pdf (which you should - his background story is explained there), you also know about his now undead family, who also serves as his minions and might go for a rather creepy holo-deck style encounter. I also particularly enjoyed the gallery of rare and very strange were-creatures and his vault, in which he bound souls of lycanthropes to now terribly cursed armors and weapons. His laboratory also bears mentioning: It's one of the locations where Temerlyth could make his final stand and his phylactery, for once, is actually CLEVERLY hidden, as befitting of a foe of Temerlyth's intellect. So, what's in it for the PCs, should they succeed? Well, it's here that the scenario is truly interesting: We get a significant slew of Temerlyth's library as items - complete with names, contained information, (very specific) skill-bonuses gained when consulting them etc. - a total of 23 grimoires are included and what can I say: I love them! I love it when publications go above and beyond and its flavorful tidbits like this that stand out and make for a much more memorable payoff than finding 100 GP worth in books.
And then, there's Temerlyth#s artifact: The Moonfire Soulstone. Once activated, it shoots searching rays of lycanthrope-searing light and continues to do so until charged. Killed targets are soultrapped and once the device is fully charged, it emits  a devastating explosion of energy at close range and purges lycanthropy from a huge radius, using the trapped souls as fuel. Pure genius! This is a tactical weapon of mass destruction and will be the reason why my players have to defeat Temerlyth: Just imagine an army of lycanthropes, poised to crush any resistance and then, the PCs hear about this benevolent sage who fights the threat - only to realize fast that salvation from the were-beast onslaught might come at the cost of their moral integrity or even their souls. Or provide for a heroic last stand where the PCs thwart a lycanthropic invasion at the cost of their immortal souls. Barring that, an activation of the weapon makes for a thrilling final confrontation with Temerlyth that surpasses even the lich's stand-alone lethality. The pdf also contains a reference sheet for the dungeon's general properties, a page on how to read the grimoire-sections, extensive information on how to scale every encounter from CR 8 to 12, a fully hyperlinked spellbook of Temerlyth and a one-page, full color map of the complex.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to TPK Games b/w 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks are nice, although I have seen them in other sources before. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks and, as has become the tradition with TPK Games, hyperlinks to the SRD for quick reference of any rules you might have forgotten. However, in contrast to other releases by TPK Games, some of the statblocks have not been as extensively hyperlinked as others. While each includes at least some hyperlinks, the coverage is not as universal as with their other releases. When reviewing the Tomb of Caragthax the Reaver, I complained about it being too short - the same cannot be said of Temerlyth's laboratory - we get a concisely-written dungeon full of sadistic traps, deadly lycanthropes and hungry undead. One thing you should be aware of, though, is that while all stats necessary to run this scenario are included, I do urge you to buy Temerlyth the Undying as well in order to fully understand the primary antagonist's motivations and character. Some of the enemies herein are weaker than you would expect for their CR due to poor equipment, but the amount of treasure and the deadly challenges herein mean that your PCs won't be disappointed on the loot-side. They'll also be hard-pressed to triumph against the rather deadly challenges offered by this dungeon. While I love the library with its detailed list of tomes herein, I also consider the item gravemaker terribly over-powered. The map, while beautiful is rather cluttered and I would have LOVED a player-friendly version sans secret doors/keys/traps to cut apart and show to my players, as I hate drawing dungeon maps. In the end, the venture to Silvermote can be considered a diamond in the rough - there are minor smudges like aforementioned item and inconsistencies and essentially, you should add $1.99 for the Temerlyth-pdf to the price, but the dungeon still makes for an iconic, disturbing, deadly crawl that offers quite a bit of content for you. Weighing all the pros and cons, I still very much enjoyed the pdf and can easily change e.g. gravemaker to work only for his specific owner, thus my final verdict will be a good 4 Rudii and a hearty recommendation, especially if you're intrigued by the artifact/last stand idea I mentioned earlier.


As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,
Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody,
I'm back for another city and a pdf I should have reviewed a long time ago - without further ado, here are the mean
Streets of Zobeck


This urban noir adventure anthology set in the by now legendary clockwork city of Zobeck is 94 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 blank page and 1 page back cover, leaving 88 pages of content, so let's follow Ben McFarland's advice and get gritty and grimy!


The pdf kicks off with so-called faces of Zobeck, i.e. characters and creatures that dwell at the dark and dirty underbelly of the city, from grimy urban fey to drug-addicted mages, enigmatic individuals that can make corpses disappear, goblin assassins and alchemist who dilute their potions - all the Npcs featured in this chapter come with their own background, goals and secrets and all are somewhat influenced by the harsh dog-eat-dog- realities of life in the grime - if you want an example from literature, think Thieves World.


Of course, we not only get new NPCs, but also new places and it is here that the anthology starts to truly rock hard - each of the locations is iconic and comes with its own, highly detailed map. The Black Lotus, an opium den led by the enigmatic, kabuki-style painted man who offers any magical favors you require would be only one example. Of course, we also visit the black market in the eponymous cartways of Zobeck. Once we're done shopping with illicit goods, we show up at the neutral ground of the city's underworld, the botanical rooftop garden of Hommal for a nice tea (or other substance) we'll visit the old Stross bathhouse/massage parlor, before we, refreshed, but somewhat disturbed by the glimpse of a shadowfey in the pool, go to the silken scabbard to relax with the prostitutes there. It is also here, where we find Tyron, king of fixers, the best of a kind of rogues (new archetype + new roguish talent) who can get/repair just about anything - for the right price/favor!
Before we jump head-first into all the adventures awaiting us, let's check out the traces of Zobeck at the end of the book: 8 new feats center on urban (and non-lethal - yes!) problem-solving and 16 regional traits to create e.g. characters who are sons of butchers or gang members. We also get 4 excellent new spells (including a amoral atonement), 3 stellar new mundane items (e.g. special paint only visible via a certain lens), a new weapon quality (disarming) and 6 new magic items, including a black book of confessionals, a bag of traps and a cloak that makes people forget they even saw/met you. Excellent tools for those on the problematic side of the law.


That being said, we'll dive into Ben McFarland's contribution to the adventures with "Everyone Lies" (House M.D. anyone?). From here on, the SPOILERS reign. potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.


Still here? All righty! Everyone lies is a take on the quintessential femme fatale story - a thief has botched a job and wants the PCs to find his lady and warn her. Unfortunately, that's not all - said thief has acquired a black book of confessions of a noble and now the secret police also tries to press-gang the PCs into getting it back for them. Said thief's guild happens to be the dread cloven nine and this guild also wants the book. The PCs will have to embark on a investigation that is hindered by all factions, several brawls and finally meet to girl and keep her safe - unfortunately, she doesn't have to book with her. The PCs have to plan a heist to get to the book and  manipulate the power-structures of the city's underbowels to get out of the crossfire - possibly even with the help of the notorious drakhul! An excellent and quintessentially noir adventure.
The second adventure, "Rust" by the master of creepiness Richard Pett has two disreputable merchants contact the PCs - Mister Corpulent and Mister Doldrum, both more than meets the eye, want to hire the PCs to put an end to the hauntings of the "night-things" and claim a treasure of one butcher-lord/minor industrialist that has been disposed by his workers. Unfortunately, the greedy slaughterman does not rest easy and neither his new body, nor his automatons and newfound gargoyle-artist allies want the twisted merchants or the PCs to succeed, resulting in first a disturbing sandbox investigation and then a showdown in an animated, possessed slaughterhouse. Backstabbing clients included... Stellar. Richard pett at his finest - grimy, iconic, disturbing - Mnar, indeed!


Of course, no noir anthology would be complete without a heist, and Christina Stiles provides one in "The Fish and the Rose" - the PCs are supposed to steal a magical picture and  hand it over to a shadowy employer. Of course, only a most lethal entrance to the cartways, guarded by a local legend of a brawler leads to the vault and said vault is guarded as well. However, the planning of the heist/possibilities for the PCs to find these means of entrance feel a bit shoehorned - more versatility/ options for the Pcs to plan the heist as well as a more lethal vault for a more Mission Impossible-feeling would have been nice. A good adventure, but not on par with the first two.


Next on the line would be "The First Lab" by Mike Franke, which opens a rather dark chapter in the history of Zobeck: Kovacs, one of the masterminds (if not THE mastermind) behind the clockwork knights seems to have experimented with soul removal, infernal creatures etc. and some of his prestigious creations might be still out there. Worse, someone has stolen a diary leading to his lab and there still are...things...inside. The PCs are hired to reclaim the diary and keep their mouths shut. In order to make up the advantage of thieves, the PCs will have to sell some of their dreams to the dragged woman. Once the deal's been made, they'll be at Kovac's lab and will have to deal with the infernal clockwork abominations and clochworker assassins. Their primary antagonist hiding behind the lab's defenses - an insane clockworker cleric hell-bent on utter eradication of his own kind.


Matthew Stinson's "Rebuilding a good man" is a completely different kind of scenario -  Heet Nul, philanthropist, sponsor of orphanages and downright awesome guy is dying of old age and his heir is a greedy, evil s-o-b. Fortunately, a devil is currently trying to extort the painted man, who doesn't take lightly to any such attempts, leaking precious information to Heet's friend - the devil's lackeys are stealing a clockworker body and it's up to the PCs to steal it back from them. Of course, that's only the beginning - they need a specialist to transfer Heet's soul from his failing form to his new body. Unfortunately the only guy available is in the Silent Scabbard, drunk and uncooperative. Even worse, the parts are not enough and potions, a heart etc. is still missing - tailed by the devil and Heet's heir, the PCs are on a run through the night to scrounge everything together and save at least one good man in this cesspool of corruption. Even better, each and everything they do has to be weighed between doing the prudent thing and the faster thing - Heet's clock is ticking... By far my favorite of the scenarios in this anthology!


Mike Franke's "Ripper"is a story that has the PCs press-ganged into a murder-investigation against a serial-killer after they fail to stop a lynching. The investigation is intriguing, but there is one thing I really didn't like about it: It's yet another "possessed-dagger"-story. All right, I can name "Fury in Freeport" and "Hour of the Knife" from the top of my head and could probably find more examples that have done this schtick. Not impressed, in spite of the cool imagery involved.
The final adventure, Christina Stiles' "Flesh Fails" is more interesting - a love-triangle between two archmages and a master alchemist has ended rather unpleasantly with an engineered death and now the PCs stumble into the machinations of one truly powerful antagonist and his diabolical schemes. In order to find the truth, the PCs will have to do some research in an exclusive BDSM-club devoted to Marena and finally stop one of the most powerful arcanists in all of Zobeck! I really liked this adventure, not only for the mature depiction of BDSM not only being for the evil guys, but also because the adventure has potential galore to be expanded - the masterplan of the villain lends itself to further expansion and all in all, I would have loved for the adventure to be a full-blown mega-adventure instead of a part of an anthology, but oh well.


Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though not as good as I've come to expect from Open Design-projects, there are a lot of bold/non-bold inconsistencies in e.g. the feats. Layout is STUNNING, though - 2-column standard and the artworks by Glen Zimmerman, distinct, creepy, grimy and dirty is simply AWESOME and something that truly helps the feeling of this noir-anthology. The pdf comes fully bookmarked. Streets of Zobeck is a stellar anthology of locations, characters and adventures that center on the grimy parts of the city - in fact, the overall details of the setting converge into a sense of detail that makes the city as much a character as the people who inhabit it. While I'm not too excited about the traits and feats, the magical items and especially the characters and locations are simply stellar and should be considered the new benchmark for urban characters/locations. Add to that a selection of mature, grimy adventures from the seedy underbelly that mostly feel distinct and completely different from your usual fare and you get another excellent anthology from Open Design. My final verdict, due to the one adventure that falls flat and the editing and formatting glitches, will be 4.5 Rudii.









Of course, there's also the web-enhancement


Alleys of Zobeck





This web-enhancement for Streets of Zobeck is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover/editorial, 1/2 a page SRD, leaving 15 1/2 pages of content to add to the adventure anthology, so what exactly do we get?


First of all, we get a  great way to introduce the PCs to Zobeck's corrupt side - coming to the city on board of a boat, Jaroslav Strauz, a corrupt city official who tries to have the PCs set up for alleged smuggling/similar crimes - even better, the set-up makes for a great introduction of the PCs to one of the adventures.


We get an alternate form of lust-domain for Marena and additional encounters for the respective adventures: The Fish and the Rose gets an added encounter with two barghests. The First Lab is expanded by full rules for the creation and modification of clockwork modifications and "Ripper" gets a new template.


Then, there are new characters (all with their original artworks!): We get Goldscale, a kobold paladin, a crazy gutter prophet and a river captain who struck a deal with the unseelie.


Players get even more tools with 5 new feats and 7 new traits as well as grafts - additional dirty fighting feats and rules for grafting clockwork hands etc. on your body. Even cooler, we get 4 new magic items (like a deceptive scarf) and a new incantation to steal memories. The true winners here, though, are the alchemical smoke bombs and the clockwork caltrops.


The pdf goes on to provide us 50 common items on a list and 50 valuable items - neat!
Seeing how important locations are in Streets of Zobeck, the addition of two fully mapped locations is great - the rampant roach and Ulmar's rare book shop. Even better, several scenario ideas are provided not only for these new locations, but also for ones from Streets of Zobeck. The final cool NPC introduced is the loyal kobold, Blackeye, proprietor of Blackeye's carriage.


Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and the artwork sets a new standard for any web-enhancement out there - all original and of the highest quality - very impressive. The pdf has no bookmarks, my only and very minor gripe. The bits and pieces contained herein add even more value to the anthology and the new characters/introduction encounters are top-notch. Seeing I have nothing to complain and that the quality is as stellar as possible for the low price, I'll settle for a final verdict of 5 Rudii - if you own Streets of Zobeck, you need this.








All right, that's it for now, see you soon and as always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

Hey all!

This is just a little noodle on some of the design challenges in finishing up Fire as She Bears. As some of you may know, FaSB is an in-the-works extension of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules aimed at bringing the thrill of Age of Sail ship-to-ship combat to the gaming table -- without anyone ever winding up bored.

The worst things about ship combat (airship, sailing ship, what have you) in TRPGs crawl up from under the table, mid play, and punch players in the boredom sacks. Who wants to sit around watching one player at the table captain a ship, round after round, inching it toward an opponent across the battle mat? BORING.

Good ship-to-ship rules need to empower every player to make important, encounter affecting decisions every round. Good rules need to offer options and choices, not leave some players twiddling their thumbs while others engage in a tactical board game. The same thing seems to plague sci/fi settings and hacker rules -- but that's another discussion.

To beat this problem, one of FaSB's tools is an abstraction for ship movement and ship related actions, blended with initiatives in standard Pathfinder combat rounds. The ship is moving, crew are active, cannons fire, sails burn, grapeshot takes off legs -- all at the very same time the PCs carry out initiative order combat.

Here's the design challenge that's been bugging me: develop an easy to use, swift to apply heuristic for GMs to leaven ship movement and shipped based responses (PC decides to help put out sail fires, PC decides to man cannon to the improvement of accuracy and rate of fire, PC decides to lose legs to grapeshot while exhorting crew to prepare to repel boarders) into the initiative round.

The core of the solution I'm currently noodling starts by assigning an moment of ship movement to every initiative in the initiative order, up to the limit of ship movement. If the ship has a movement of 6 (different scale for ships, as you can imagine) and there are 6 combatants in an initiative order, then ship moves 6 times.  That just leaves developing a simple procedure for a GM to follow when there are more or less instances of ship movement than initiative order combatants.

The trick is to neither overly-complicate nor overly slow setting up an encounter, placing initiative markers, etc.

I think I've got it figured, but I'd love to hear other peoples noodles.

Hey all! I've owed this blog a review for a long time now and -- excuses about the never-ending busy, busy aside -- the latest issue of Kobold Quarterly just dragged me to the table, kicking and wailing. Well maybe not wailing, but definitely kicking my heels up for joy. I've said it before, here it is again: Dragon and Dungeon Magazine are not dead, they're just renamed Kobold Quarterly.

Thank you Wolfgang -- and all your little Kobold's too.

And there isn't a better reason to come to the keyboard then to trash...er...review the work of a fellow designer and Werecabbage. KQ #20 not only features the stunning artwork of my friend Rich Clark on the cover, it showcases the Elven Archer core class, designed by John Ling.

Now John and I have a long history of disagreeing about design on most everything. Our bitter dispute about magical toilets or the lack thereof deeply influenced our collaborative contributions to 0onegames Great City Campaign Setting.

I pause here to reflect: what does it say about me as a designer that I could have a dispute both bitter and deeply influential -- about magical toilets? *sigh* Sometimes I wonder...

Full disclosure: John and I have frequently collaborated. The man is a mechanics mavin. Rone Barton of the Ennie winning Atomic Array podcast dubbed him the "Ling 9000" for just that reason, and I've relied on him to ground my more gonzo design notions in solid mechanics time and again. All that said, we do indeed frequently disagree, and I LOVE rubbing his nose in his errors.

So, here we go. Here are John's errors with the Elven Archer

[[          ]]

That blank space contained all the places where I disagree with or dislike Ling's archer.

*sigh* Yeah. It's blank.

It burns me to say it, but Ling's "The Elven Archer" rocks! Not since Lenard Lakofka's little article "Missile Fire and the Archer subclass" from his Leomund's Tiny Hut column in Dragon #45 (dating myself!) have I found myself so enamored of a designer's take on archery. After reading this, I'm just itching to pull back the gut and let fly the shaft.

Here are some highlights:

• A little gem of a section on adapting the class away from Elves and even away from archery! I'm so gonna steal this from him.
• The careful introduction of sneak attack like damage
• The power to grant divine enchantment to arrows
• A dollop of ranger and a sprinkling of rogue to create the ultimate silent forest archer

Then I noticed in a little aside at the end of the article that John and his group have been playtesting and refining this class for three years. Can you say dedication anyone?

It's a great class, and I'm looking forward to running one. Then KQ takes things a step forward by adding an article on magical arrows of the Arbonesse, tying the class into their campaign setting without locking it in there -- deftly done and a great article to boot.

If I have one beef with KQ it's lies with their recently introduced book review column. Most of the reviews are great. Thorough. Informative. They really help me decide if I want to spend my money and time on a book. I particularly enjoyed Ben McFarland's review as well as his cozy reviewing style. Other reviews? Not so much. I'd like to see a bump in quality there. But I'm nitpicking. Really nitpicking.

Let me close by singing KQ praises again: check out KQ #19. They introduced a class there that I absolutely adore -- the White Necromancer. A necromancer who only uses his powers for good. I'd like love to combine that class with a Super Genius Investigator birthing something out of a medieval John Carey novel or a magical Name of the Rose.

I suggest you pick up a subscription to KQ if you haven't already. You really won't regret it. Oh, and KQ doesn't pay me to say that, but if you want to suggest it to Wolfgang? I won't disabuse you. ;)

Game on! 

Hej everybody,

today I'm taking a short break from fantasy-rpg civilization and bring to you my review of a very particular wilderness:

Intrepid Expeditions - The Island of Life



This pdf is 51 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 47 pages of content.
So what exactly do we get here? We are introduced to the fabled island of Kawa'lea. On the mundane side, we start our exploration of the island with a discussion of the climate and the peculiarities of the monsoon weather there. The interesting component about Kawa'lea, though, is the non-mundane aspect of the island - due to the abundance of life-energy on the island, death is far from final on Kawa'lea - if you die, you make a will-save depending on your level. If you succeed, you are reincarnated and get mutations that might be benevolent or unpleasant. There are 3 basic categories of mutations, ranging from hump backs to backwards bent knees. You might even get tentacles, reflective spells etc. Polymorph also tends to result in mutations on Kawa'lea.
That's not all, though: The very vegetation on the island of life is infused with magic and life and might reproduce a wide variety of magical effects. The waters of the island offer enough adventuring as well - underwater politics, a graveyard of ships wasted upon the dread reefs surrounding the island. There is a secret war being waged beneath the waves - the sea serpent wizard, the self-styled serpent king has problems with revolutionaries and the magical pearls make for powerful incentives to join either side.
The plains of Kawa'lea contain the only true speck of civilization left - after a settlement of people mysteriously disappeared and left their home Roanoke-style:  Pennar, a wizard is studying the strange effects of the island and has a (very unreliable) teleportation circle. The herd of horses, unicorns and pegasi as well as awakened horses make for another rather interesting faction on the island.
The Western Forest of the Island has more in store for you - a village of awakened animals where rabbits live in harmony with carnivores. Hidden in this forest, we also find Nathrigaeus, the immortal tree that guards the orchard of enlightenment and seeks to expand his influence via his dryad slaves. The primitive gorilla-like humanoid uktans make for another potential threat in this part of the island. In the eastern forest, which is more swampy, the PCs can find an abandoned temple, which alongside the Uktan-base contains the puzzle-pieces for one of the island's greatest mysteries. Oh, there also are demons here, mysterious standing stones....and the fountain of youth.
Finally, mount Kawa'lea features deadly foes, even more iconic locations and potentially even the secret behind the island's mysterious properties, which I'll exclude from this review.
A unique island like Kawa'lea also spawns unique critters - from arcanum birds with magical plumes to mutated island behemoths, deadly fish, crab jellies etc., the critters uniformly come with unique signature abilities. Have I mentioned Forgebelly Fishes and Megastirges?  
The product also comes with a 15-page player's guide, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 11 pages of content. The player's guide comes  with a wide array of rumors to lead the PCs there. There's also the Devotee of the Sacred Isle-10-lvl PrC that comes with d10, 4+Int skills per level, full BAB and medium fort-saves. The PrC focuses on rejuvenations, special mutations like gaze attacks etc. and, of course, the power to transcend death even easier.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and artwork is stock, which, while not great, makes for the only gripe I have with this pdf. Both the regular guide and the player's guide come with printer-friendly b/w-versions and  are bookmarked.  The island is iconic in mechanics, ideas and content, there is a lot of content for the moderate asking price and in the end, just have to applaud the creative guys over at Necromancers of the Northwest. The exploration is by far the best pdf they released since Advanced Arcana. Fluff, writing, crunch - everything is stellar. my only gripe is that I would have enjoyed stats for the NPCs, but i guess that's ok - we already get more than 60 pages of content. Seeing that I don't have any true gripes apart from minor nitpicks, my final verdict will be a hearty recommendation alongside 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.

I hope you enjoy this detour, next time I'll be back in civilization - a seedy type of civilization! See you then and as always - thanks for reading my ramblings!

Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody,

I've been to the great city for quite a while and I felt like a temporary change of turfs - thus, I went to the frontier and a city no less magical, yet completely different from metropolitan, Moloch The Great City:
Headless Hydra Games have recently published their own setting, centered on magic, with a rather interesting old world ambiance and magic that still feels magical in its rural and fey style. I present to you the

Mor Aldenn Campaign Setting




This pdf is 167 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving a whopping 164 pages of content for the setting, so let's check out HHG's City of Mages!



As has been the tradition with Mor Aldenn books, this one also includes a short story that is supposed to draw us into the city's flair - in contrast to all 3 of the player's guide, though, Jason Kimble's 12-page short story Demon Dreams actually paints an understandable, logic and exciting city rife with adventure, social structures and most of all, doesn't fall into the "Alert the Mages"-scheme, but rather provides valid reasons why the mages don't immediately act and why one of the most powerful figures of the city remains behind the scenes. Clever and a nice read.


After that, we get a guide to the city, including a b/w-2-page map, information on the archmages and governing bodies, guilds, religions (including some sample religious tales) and, most of all: The 3 laws of magic that serve as the judicial foundation of how Wizardry is practiced in Mor Aldenn. Local holidays, festivals, organizations etc are covered as well and after reading this mere paragraph, the city makes more sense to me than after the lecture of the whole player's guide. More importantly, the grand logic bugs have been wiped and while I'd love to see a more detailed section on festivals, laws etc., the amount of information provided is enough to create plenty of adventures. Any awkward wordings that have plagued the predecessor have completely vanished and been replaced with text that is fluent to read and is actually enjoyable. The section can be considered a success.


After this very fluffy introduction to the city of mages, we are introduced to crunch galore in the player's options. The first new bit of crunch would be the Spellwarden, a 20-level base-class alternative for the Magus focused on defense, especially against magic users. This class was somewhat of a surprise for me, as I sincerely didn't think it would work. Surprisingly, though, it does: The class gets d8, 2+ Int skills per level, 3/4 BAB,  good fort and will-saves, profiency with light weapons and armor and martial weapons, Int-based spellcasting like a wizard and an arcane pool that can be used to apply defensive qualities to armor and shield as well as defensive bonuses. He gets medium armor proficiency relatively fast and can cast with shields. Quite cool, he also can use his arcane pool to grant defensive auras when casting spells, the effect of the aura depending on the school of the spell cast, effectively adding another usage to prepared spells that would otherwise be useless in combat. They also are rather adept at counterspelling and get spell progression of up to 6th level. His arcana selection is limited, though, as is his spell-list and he gets 4 additional arcanas. I really like the class, as it makes for a great "anti-magic-cop"-character/SWAT-team-like style. Think about Spellwardens attacking a cabal of wizards conducting a ritual with the PCs...or the PCs trying to pull one of while beset by them. Two thumbs up for this one!


This section also contains 3 new races - the Centaur, the Gaiant and the Sprite. I have already commented on the hgaiant and centaur in their respective original products (Player's Guide & Gaiants Discovered), so just to quickly sum it up: Centaurs - I prefer SGG's Lapith-race, as they can turn bipedal and thus explore normal dungeons etc without the mount/large creature problems of the centaur. Gaiants: I like the race per se, their fluff and idea, but some parts of them are overpowered: There is a racial trait that gives them a natural attack (with reach, they are large!) that does 1d12 damage. Go forth and weep, ye monks! This section was a wasted chance to repair/improve some balance-concerns. The Sprite is an interesting race:  They get +2Dex and Cha, -2 Str, an additional form of movement, low-light vision, a bonus feat, +2 to a kill selected from a limited list, a daily reroll and...well. They are tiny. PFRPG's first tiny PC-race. There are also new feats (29 to be precise) that support the sprites, centaurs and the ley-lines. Ley lines? Yep, these feats grant supernatural abilities and work better on ley lines and not at all in anti-magic fields, but more on ley-lines later.

Next up are 4 archetypes: An arcane paladin, a hunter of magical creatures (ranger, including a new combat style) and 2 new rogue archetypes, the Prestidigator who can use his talents at range (think a better arcane trickster of the 3.0 days of yore) and the street magician who gets minor magic access. Then there is also a new wizardry subdomain for the cleric and we get new spells as well - the spells mostly centered on nature and the land, fitting with the fey/old world theme. It should be noted that some of the spells are reprints from e.g. the Gaiant-book etc. Finally on the new-rules side, we get the Aldennic Spellshield 5-level PrC. Where the Spellwarden is the magic anti-mage specialist, the Spellshield is his mundane equivalent: Gaining full BAB, d10, medium fort and will saves and 6+Int skills per level, they get minor spell resistance and several tricks for using dirty fighting to neutralize arcane threats. Nice PrC and one of the examples where a PrC is truly prestigious and justified - nice!


This concludes the player chapter and we'll now go into detail - the third chapter details specific sites of the City of Mages: The chapter contains information on the wizard's towers and the fallen tower (the latter complete with a detailed map and read-aloud text), the tower of all-magic (the center of the mage's administration, also with a map) and include some fully stated NPCs and hooks galore. The setion also contains detailed information on inns and taverns, including maps for the Wizard's Staff and Ugly Harpy. We also get 16 shops with read-aloud texts, including a place to care for animals and an arena to battle strange creatures. The section also includes a map of the dungeon of barrowdelve, the citiy's necropolis that contains benign ancestral spirits as well as recently a disturbing influx of undead that roam the street at night. The mechanics of ancestral spirits make them essentially benign haunts - neat idea! The final location that comes with a onepage map is teh house of blades, a kind of fighter's guild. (And if you want more, I'd recommend Soldragonn Academy...)


Chapter 4 details one of the truly unique aspects of Mor Aldenn, the ley lines - set on a nexus of several of them, the chapter includes rules to tap into their respective powers, a map of Mor Aldenn with the known ley lines drawn into it. We also get write-ups for teh respective ley lines including lore-sections to detail the strange aspects of the overabundance of magic and several other bits and pieces of knowledge on them. The lines also come with DCs to know/recognize them and generally, the section makes creating more  rather easy. The chapter also includes places of power, another cool staple of fantasy literature that is rather underused and contain fey circles, monolithic mounds and stone-circles as well as specific information for e.g. the Nexus of Mor Aldenn. I did VERY much enjoy this section in particular, due to it being unique and helping set the city of mages apart from other fantasy settings.


Now, what is adventure without foes? Mor Aldenn, the city of mages definitely has enough of them and chapter 5. Unique villainous foes like the Demon of the Fallen Tower, a unique demon (CR 18, btw.) with rather deadly powers that is confined to the fallen tower that once housed the city's summoners, seething and seeking to escape. The giants of the grand Ossindrilon also get their fully stated king and the skin-less, flayed-looking harpies of the Spindlewood flow get an erinyes-queen. And then, there are two more major foes - Taraathalorm Wyrmmother: A green dragon ghost that still stalks the woods, lusting for revenge. And then, there is the final primary antagonist of the city, the dreaded mistress of covens, the Night Hag - she is a CR 18 witch 14 and sheis quite an iconic, almost Baba Yaga-like figure. Have i mentioned the malign, intelligent cauldron?


After these movers and shakers, we get a brief timeline of Mor Aldenn' history and then new monsters. That is, they might be new for you. They include the Marsh Dragon, the Bog Giant, the Gold Cap, the Hag Spider, the Leyspinner, the Mahr, the Mirejack, Mythravens, Portunes, Spell Pikes and Veraxar. It should be noted that all of these creatures are included in the Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium (for detailed information, check out my review of it) and that the Spell Pike got a new piece of artwork - nice.


In chapter 8, we are introduced to the lands surrounding the city, including stats for the clockwork-possessed Miller, Moon Folly (I'd recommend checking out the pdf, though!), Ossindrilon and the Spindleflow as well as some pieces of information on hazards and a  random encounter table.


The last chapter is devoted to an introductory adventure called Ringside seats. This contains SPOILERS, so potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.
...Still here? SPOILERS ahead.


All right! The PCs are contacted by Arvin Pheltapor, owner of Pheltapor's Phantabularium, the place where due to a loop-hole in the law, people may bet on (non-lethal) bouts against strange creatures. If the PCs have only knocked out his escaped wild animals, they will have a thankful customer at their hands who wants them to escort his latest acquisition home. On their way to get the goods, the PCs are beset by Lizardfolk and finally receive the boars - boars? Well... the particularly ugly, scaled boars are in fact three imps in disguise and thus  can manage to easily escape from their confinement. One leads the PCs on a merry chase, one confronts them in the Phantabulrium and the final wants to be taken as a familiar once his brothers have been vanquished. (Though until Improved Familiar is taken, the creature is more than unreliable=. I did enjoy this rather light-hearted introduction to the City of Mages and while the scenario per se is nothing to gasp in astonishment at, I do have read far, far worse scenarios, especially at the back of a campaign setting book. The pdf concludes with an NPC-name appendix that would be even more useful, would it include the page numbers where the information on the NPCs can be found - after all, many of them are scattered throughout the book.


Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are actually top-notch - I did notice less than 5 glitches on over 160 pages - neat! In contrast to some of the other offerings of Headless Hydra Games, I noticed only one page that contains some rather awkward wordings, making this a very good read and pleasantly surprising me with the quality of the rather concise writing. The pdf comes with quite extensive bookmarks that make navigation of the pdf very easy. The pdf is slightly bigger than 100 mbs, at this length, with the wide variety of high-res maps and fully bookmarked, this is ok. Layout adheres to the 2-column b/w- standard and the b/w-artworks rock. I already commented on the quality of writing and the new crunch is mostly nice. While I'm still not sold on centaurs and a certain racial trait of the Gaiant, I do absolutely love the fluff of the city. The city of mages  makes sense and is a concisely-presented magocracy that makes for a neat little setting and contains some rather interesting characters, hooks galore and dreadful villains. I particularly enjoyed the "anti-mage"-classes like the magus-variant and the PrC.


Since I already commented on the high quality artworks and neat maps, I'll move on to some bits that didn't quite strike my fancy as much: If you already own all the other Mor Aldenn-pdfs like e.g. Moon's Folly and the Player's Guide, you'll find some of the information/content repeated. This holds especially true for the monster-section. I would have loved to see new critters there or alternatively get all the monsters from the compendium reprinted, not just a selection. I also would have loved some sample statblocks for Spellwarden-guardsmen and similar characters that utilize the unique crunch of the city - as written, you'll have to build the statblocks for e.g. watchmen yourself. On the other hand, the campaign setting is actually cheap for the amount of content provided and the quality you'll encounter in these pages.


While personally, I think some of the options to be on the upper scale of power, generally these glitches are by far outweighed by the cool ideas and content and the rather distinguished, unique fluff of the setting. The Ley lines especially offer potential galore. I am really hard-pressed to judge how to rate this particular pdf - On the one hand, I absolutely loved a lot of the content and Mor Aldenn actually came to a logical life in my mind - this by one who abhorred the player's guide and thought that it made no sense, by the way! On the other hand, there are some crunchy bits that are unbalanced, some wordings that could be slightly more precise and there is some reprinted material. Due to these minor issues, I can't bring myself to rating this campaign setting the full 5 Rudii, but I'll settle gladly for a final verdict of 4.5 Rudii. Your mileage may vary whether you'd round up or down. Due to the low price of only 10 bucks, though, and due to liking the fairy-tale like, truly magical atmosphere, villains with unique abilities etc.pp. of the setting, I'd suggest rounding up. Just please be aware of the rough edges I mentioned in this review.



Need some additional Hags for the covens of the dread Night Hag?

Super Genius Games have just what you've been looking for with

Mythic Menagerie: Covens of Chaos



This installment of the Mythic Menagerie-series is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page foreword, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 20 pages for new hags to add to covens and conjure up the darkest powers, so how do they hold up?


The pdf begins with a short discussion on coven magic, arguably one of the defining characteristics of hags before delving into the latest addition to the roster of evil crones, the disgusting Bangungot (CR 6): Terribly obese, these grotesque creatures have lost their teeth and can vomit up the bones of the poor unfortunates they have consumed to obey their every whim as undead servitors or support them, when their spear-like nails don't do the job alone. Very cool!
The fanged Gwrachod (CR 13), with flesh like teak and disgusting tusks come with their own poison, a horrible, bleeding bite and are attuned to the elements of their lands. The may enchant bodyparts of the fallen to create truly disgusting magic items.
The Hu'Pochtli (CR 9) are jungle witches inspired by Aztec-style cultures and make for fearsome combatants - not only due to their rage-inducing auras and the ability to turn snakes into spears (and back again!), but also because they heal every time they cause injury. Her Serpent Spear (Sp)-ability is not in italics, though.


The most powerful of the Witches herein is the Kalaratri (CR 15), a large, 4-armed witch inspired by Indian mythology, which is mechanics-wise the most interesting creature in the book: Using her Skirt of severed humanoid arms (!!!), these harbingers of apocalypse, consummate foes of outsiders and schemers can cast via the skulls of her three first victims by having her skirt of arms configure the skulls. This, of course, leaves her hands free...all 4 of them. Fearsome, deadly, iconic - what's not to love?


The Night Filcher (CR 6) is less powerful, but disturbing nonetheless: Consummate kidnappers, their very touch causes a searing pain and their gaze can send you into spastic seizures. To add insult to injury, when not rescued fast enough from their clutches, you'll probably have to face the blades and spells of your erstwhile comrades - the filcher can change people into their slaves. Slaves that do everything to keep their new mommy happy...


The Rokurokubi (CR 7) is a special, rather eastern witch that shares some similarities with Hebi-no-onnas, namely that her arms end in snake-heads. She does not stop there, but adds disguises, illusions and snake legs and a disturbing head to the portfolio. Nevertheless, I felt a bit like "been there, done that" here.


The CR 7 Truie is something completely different: Boar-headed, violent and eternally hungry, these gluttonous creatures make for  powerful enforcers and serve as a nice variation from the cliché of the scheming hags by putting some raw, brute strength in the mix. Neat!


The final new hag we get is the CR 3Whaitiri - bowed women constantly weeping blood, in whose distended bellies the remains of their former victims can be seen. Have I mentioned their magical guffaw? Creepy imagery, well-presented and cool to spring upon low-level PCs. Two thumbs up!
Hags are known for creating disturbing items and thus, we get a neat little array of deadly tools utilized by the covens of chaos:
Ever wanted to use large mosquitoes as darts to drain foes of blood and subsequently heal yourself? Use nets of hag's hair? Put death-bearing skulls on poles, Egil Skallagrímr-style? Use severed human ears to  survey conversations? Do you love these items as much as I do?
The 7 new feats centering on hags and coven magic are ok, but pale in comparison to the AWESOMENESS of the magic items, while the 4 new spells (including a rain of leeches!) capture the grimy, dread flair of hags perfectly again.


Conclusion:
Editing and formatting, while not perfect, are very good and offer apart from very minor glitches no major reasons for concern. Layout adheres to the 2-column, full-color standard and the b/w-artworks are neat. The pdf comes with bookmarks, which is always nice to have. I generally liked the witches, ähem hags, herein - With the exception of the lame snake-hag, they all bring some interesting aspect that hasn't been done to death to the table. The new items rock and ooze style and while I'm not into the new feats, I figure the "every book needs feats, whether it makes sense or not"-disease has not yet abated. The new spells are cute, although I would have preferred some coven-exclusive rituals for the poor hags...perhaps in a future installment? *winkwink, nudgenudge* Seeing that I have only minor gripes and that the amount of content that rocks surpasses any suboptimal aspects, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 Rudii - a good installment of the series that could have been the best.














All right, that's it for now from me, as always, thank you for reading my ramblings,


Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody,

with Lou's new Fire as She Bears-project with Rite Publishing and the KUG approaching, the new year has kicked off with some rather splendid news. I have returned from a long overdue vacation (Venice is full of inspirations!) and in order to concentrate on the upcoming cool products, I think I'll have to finally get my act together and review the final installment of 0onegames' excellent Road to Revolution-Arc.

Thus, without further ado, here is

The Sundered Legion



The finale of the Road to revolution Campaign Arc is 51 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside of the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 2 pages of advertisements, 1 page back cover, leaving 43 pages of content, so let's check out this final installment of the Road to Revolution!
This being the finale of the campaign arc, the review contains MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE ARC. If you're a player and even remotely intrigued by the setting JUMP TO THE CONCLUSION NOW.
Still here?
All right!
After having changed (or kept) the leadership of the Great City, the mysterious force behind the recent upheavals is making himself known - with all forces occupied, busy or dead, the approaching army of General Krakon is ready to take the city and start a new era - unless the PCs intervene. Prompted by a group of retired generals, they are sent off on a chase after a general's missing daughter that has been captured by the humanoid Blood Fang mercenaries of Krakon to keep his opposition quiet. It turns out that said group has holed up in a tavern while the city is under martial law - the PCs will have a hard time carving through the elite mercenaries and then, via the tunnels below the tavern, find said abducted warrior-maiden (who has gone through a horrible ordeal indeed) and finally expose a weakness in one of the city gates' mechanisms: Via this intended weakness, they can keep the gates down and the army out long enough to thwart Krakon's coup d'état.
This is not where the adventure ends, though, and thankfully so: The trial of a century is at hand and while no direct evidence links Krakon with the insurrection (That makes him the first TRULY smart über-villain I've seen in any AP) , he can be touched via his subordinates thanks to military law. If the PCs have played their cards right throughout the adventure arc, they can call up a lot of testimonies (provided they thwart the assassination of the judge!) and make the prosecution challenge the general. If your PCs did worse, they might even be on the receiving end of the trial! In the end, after a lot of social interaction, smart maneuvering and good roleplaying, they should have Krakon and his lackey Abberbaugh cornered - until they demand a trial by combat. In the arena of the Circus Maximus, they'll potentially have the final benefits of the allies they gathered and the final confrontation is going to be epic indeed, not least due to the most dread of creatures being released to support the PC's foes by their allies. Once the two revolutionaries have bitten the dust, the Road to Revolution will be at its end and a new era for the Great City will begin - potentially with the PCs among the movers and shakers, be it for a new elite or an old one, for a new god or for the old ones.
Unfortunately, it's this final fight that is too easy - with only two NPCs (and some complications, granted), none of which is a primary spellcaster and some monsters, at least my players mopped the floor with the villains. While this may be intended, I'd add some additional opposition were I to run the adventure again.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good - while no typo impeded my ability to run the adventure, I did notice several minor typos - not enough to downgrade the adventure, but enough to make it noticeable. Layout adheres to a 2-column b/w-standard and the b/w-artworks rock. The cartography, as befitting of 0onegames, is stellar. The pdf comes with broadside and similar handouts to give to your players, which is always nice. The pdf also features extensive bookmarks.
The Sundered Legion has perhaps the hardest legacy ever to live up to - it is supposed to be the conclusion to my personal benchmark of good urban adventures. I expected the adventure to fail my expectations after "Puncture the Blackened Vein" and "The Usurpers" and it did - albeit in a more marginal way than I expected. At the finale of RtR 5, we are left with a Great City on the verge of a new era and "The Sundered Legion" somewhat fails to convey this sense of dread urgency and the first quest feels like a (very good) filler to provide the proverbial nail in the coffin for the political scheming going on. The trial herein, along its conclusion, however, will provide ample fun for PCs who went through the campaign arc. On the downside, though, the final confrontation is too easy for high-level PCs, at least it was for mine - I doubled the HP of the villains and they still walked over them. (Though I tend to double ALL Boss-HP to avoid short boss fights...) While finally whacking the conspirators SHOULD provide satisfaction for the PCs, I'm not sure whether this relatively easy battle was intended or not. It should also be noted that this adventure practically HAS to be played as a sequel to one or more of the RtR-adventures (though not necessarily the whole arc) - as a stand-alone adventure, it loses almost all of its epic, neat appeal. Thus, I'll settle for 2 final verdicts - one for people following at least a part of the RtR-series and one for people who look for a stand-alone. The latter should pass this adventure - it loses its unique flair and suffers from the detraction of the meta-plot - for you, this is a 3-Rudii file. For people following the RtR-campaign arc, though, this is a satisfying 4.5 Rudii-conclusion to the arc, which, while being the weakest of the adventures, still serves a fitting climax for the arc that cements the RtR's excellent status as a series of stellar urban adventures. For the purpose of this platform; I'll round down.







Are you looking for something completely different? Something dark? A session of dread? A High-level threat?


Why not check out Rite Publishing's


5 Room Dungeon - The Rabbit Hole






This pdf is 29 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages of advertisements, leaving 24 pages of content, so let's check out this adventure!



This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.



Still here? All right! This 5-room dungeon transcends the format of the premise by several factors but let me elaborate: This adventure is set in the Coliseum Morpheuon and it rocks for it - why? Because there is a place that surpasses even the Coliseum in weirdness and potential: The Rabbit Hole. Being on the realm of dreams, otherwordly beings and dread presences, aberrations and stranger things still dream as well, combining their alien minds with the sub-conscious dribble and madness seeping through the realm of dreams. In this place, people discard their dreams, throw them there to wither away - after all, dreams can destroy one as easily as a lack of them, especially on the plane of dreams!



More intriguing, once, a sorceror discarded a dream there - a dream of madness that might have destroyed said man - who happens to be the Khan of Nightmares. Born out of his betrayal of his pit-fiend ally, the sinkhole remains a dangerous demi-planar cesspit of death and now Tarrec, a peddler of dreams, hires the PCs to brave the rabbit hole. The peddler wants the PCs to go to a tavern called "The Face" where the PCs have to put a mirror on a tentacled wall horizontal (e.g. by gravity-change), put liquid on it and enter the rabbit hole. The tavern is presented with enough information to make for a disturbing introduction to the adventure and I hope to see it expanded some time in the future (Jonathan Roberts - looking for a challenge?). Jonathan Roberts is a good cue - the stellar cartographer provides a stunning full-color map of the 5 stations (I refuse to call them rooms) of this adventure. Another awesome feature of this adventure is that PCs may actually dream-burn like hell, dream-burning and morphic subjective gravity are enhanced and here, anyone may use dream-creation. I LOVE these innovations, as the expand upon the stellar mechanics of dreamburning and make the possibilities available to the PCs wider.



The adventure per se hasn't even started and it starts with a bang - the PCs fall through the floor - falling is not enough of a threat, though - The Kulkale , a CR 19 Tough Gargantuan Chaos Beastling Apocalypse Swarm is not to be trifles with and makes for a truly deadly, disturbing foe. Of course, no allusion to Alice in Wonderland would be complete without a tea-party. This one includes shard-laden crumpets and acidic tea - worst of all, the PCs should play along. Have I mentioned that the hatter here is an insane sadist whom the PCs have to appease to avoid the fate of the other tea-party guests? The third section is a moebius-loop-like labyrinth including a pack lycanthrope-nessian hellhound adamantine-clad creatures with 15 class levels. Ouch! After that, a Eldritch Shoggoth serves as the final combat encounter before the conclusion, which depends not only on the DM and his version of the coliseum, but has potential galore to be used in even more ways than provided.



Conclusion:
Editing and Formatting of V.2.0 are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the beautiful 2-column full-color standard used in Coliseum Morpheuon and the pdf features a nice mix of classic Alice-illustrations and CM-artwork. The full-color map by Jonathan Roberts is awesome and the pdf comes with bookmarks. This is an awesome adventure that redefines 5-room dungeons. The expanded dream-rules are great. The locations, each of them, oozes style and symbolism. The Alice-allusions are dark, creepy and sufficiently distinct from e.g. Crystal Frazier's stellar "The Harrowing" or the classic Dungeonland. I have but one problem with this adventure: It is only 5 rooms long. I would have loved a full-blown cthulhoid, nightmarish, high-level Alice-scenario - preferably around 128 to 200 pages. This distinct longing for more, the captivating pull the adventure exerted over me while reading it, the imagery - this 5-room dungeon belongs to the coolest little scenarios I've read in quite a while and thus deserves my highest verdict - 5 Rudii and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - Ben McFarland, Clinton Boomer and Matt Banach have created a stellar scenario with trademark complex statblocks that alone are probably worth the asking-price. Check it out!





All right, next time I'll have some setting book for you, though I haven't decided which! See you at the FaSB-project and a late happy new year to all of you!


As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,


Endzeitgeist out.

Sensica V
(look for theblood stains) Hey all!

It's been a busy year, and I've been out of touch for far too long. I'm way overdue for updating y'all, and some interesting projects loom in the future. So without further ado...


What I've Been Up To
Last Adventure
Those of you who follow my work, probably know about the last published adventure, Citadel of Pain. Feedback from fans has been marvelous and Erik the publisher over at Gaming Paper, told me he was happy with sales. So, thank you all!

New Blog Site
I'm writing a novel. There, I said it. I own it, and I've decided to blog it as I learn the form and craft. Putting the decision into action, I built and launched this website: www.bootstrapfiction.com  I cooked down multiple learn-to-write-novels/teach-yourself-to-write from the books on my shelf into one A-Z course, centered around Michael Stackpole's 21 Days to a Novel. Now I'm taking the course I designed as I write my first book. Take a peek and maybe join me for the ride.


What I'm Currently Up To
Sinister Stuff 
I've been in discussions with Nick Logue and took a hard look at some of the work I did for his (now defunct) Sinister Adventures. Two things have come out of that so far: Fire as She Bears and The Known Universe Gazetteer (the KUG).

1. Rite Publishing has agreed to launch a patronage project for Fire as She Bears. For those of you not following the saga, Fire as She Bears was a contest I conceived and launched under the Sinister banner looking for the best rules to handle d20/Pathfinder ship-to-ship combat. I want Age of Sail full broadsides in a Master and Commander mode that fits seamlessly into any d20/Pathfinder game -- and I want every player doing something awesome every turn. No one should ever sit twiddling thumbs while cannons blast and boarding parties rage! I'm very excited about this. My next job is to get Steve the manuscript, and I'm working on converting the draft to a final now. The interested should check back in for more blog posts and updates on the project.

2. Nick turned the entirety of the Known Universe Gazetteer over to me. Lock stock and barrel, including rights to all the art he bought (see example at the top of this post) -- most of it downright awesome -- and I plan to publish the book myself. The KUG is a space setting written for d20 modern. I'm looking into Pathfinder and Traveler conversion -- let me know if there are any other systems that interest you. This book of aliens, monsters, polities, hooks, deadly planets, colorful characters, hooks, and assorted bizarre and macabre space nastiness was written by the Werecabbages, most of them Paizo fan favorites, and I think its pretty awesome. No timetable just yet, but I'm doing it. I'm also talking to my cousin Tiara (Smallville, Leverage) about layout (http://tiararocks.com/); so, we may wind up with some pretty awesome design. Finally, I'm changing the name -- suggestions welcome -- as "the Known Universe" is a working title with no connection to other intellectual properties of the same name.

Now, here's the bad news: Sinister had no plans to release the product, and I'm not meeting any of Nick's preorder obligations on it. Sorry. I just cannot afford to do so. Nick owed you that money. He still owes you that money.


Here's the good news: I'm not going to make any money off of this. It's a labor of love, driven by loyalty to the authors who worked so hard on it and my craving for creative closure. As a result, I plan to give the PDF for free to anyone who can show they pre-ordered from Nick. After which he still owes you your money. I also plan to offer the print-on-demand version at cost to everyone. I don't want to make a dime for myself, and I'm cool with that. More details as this firms up. Timetables and such when I can commit to them, but not before! :)

What I'm Getting Up To
A New Adventure
A ways back Nick and I wrote an adventure for the Dungeon Magazine. They accepted it and planned to release it, just before our beloved magazine died. It was titled "Scorned" and it saddened me, immensely, that this very fun piece never saw print. It was also the last adventure Nick every worked on for Dungeon. Recently, Nick released all the rights to me. It's been Pathfinderized, and I've turned it over to Greg Vaughan at Frog God Games. Word is he's going to publish it; I'm just not sure when. Keep yer eyes pealed if it interests you, and I'll update you whenever I know more.


A New Piece on Flintlocks
For Sinister Adventures, I wrote a mechanics piece -- intended as a companion to Shackleton's wonderful Art of the Duel -- on flintlocks. It never saw the light of day, but its been Pathfinderized by John Ling, and I found another publisher for it. A great 3PP I respect and admire. Don't want to say who until I hear about a publication date, but it should be coming out for Pathfinder in (hopefully) early-mid 2012. Very happy to see this come to closure as well. Again, as I hear more I'll post here.

That's about all for now. Thanks, dear reader, for hanging in there! More words soon.

Hej everybody,

I'm sure you expected to see the finale of the Road to revolution by now, but I figured that for diversity's sake, I'd make a detour to dread Tsar in this season of cheer and joy to bring the tears back to the faces of your PCs. Thus, without further ado, let's check out

The Hidden Citadel I - At the Feet of Orcus


This pdf is 68 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving 62 pages of content, so let's check out the latest installment of the epic Slumbering Tsar saga!

This being the first review of the final section of the Slumbering Tsar-saga, this review not only contains SPOILERS for this particular installment, but for the whole saga. Potential players might want to skip ahead to the conclusion to avoid the massive SPOILERS.

Still here? All right!

The end of the epic exploration of the deadly temple-city of Orcus has the PCs use the legendary statues called disciples to call back Orcus' Hidden Citadel, a statue of the demon-lord of undeath as tall as a mountain and this adventure quite literally takes place at (and in!) the feet of Orcus, as the PCCs journey into the true palace of the dread demon-lord of Undeath. The adventure recaps what has gone before as well as the myth behind the demon lord and comes with adventure hooks for the saga. The pdf also includes an extensive set of rumors regarding the citadel and its factions as well as a recap of the effects on the dread aura of corruption infusing the fortress, the pall of Tsar.

As with many of the Tsar-installments, this one also features a series of ready-to-drop-in encounters that happen when a specific story-goal is reached (which often allude to future installments) - these ones especially emphasize the epic proportions of the saga - from the ultimate fate of a celestial spy, the truth behind the midnight peddler and the possible redemption of an artifact, the themes featured herein are sufficiently epic for the higher levels. In case you wondered, the way to defeat the pall is also included in these pages. However, if you're out there to scavenge these encounters, you should be aware that they are rather high-CR and deadly, in fact harder than this particular installment of ST, as they allude to things that happen over the course of the whole exploration of the Hidden Citadel.

The feet of Orcus can roughly be separated into two areas, the great temple and the Death Chambers. It should also be noted that a one-page table fills us in about the ultimate fate of the 51 knights, most of which have been assimilated into the cult of Orcus and converted into undead (and other!) monstrosities. The temple makes for a challenging environment, even for high-level PCs.

The Death Chambers are deadly. The huge, advanced gibbering mouther (predecessor of the things to come - see one of the creatures from the encounters - Bell, the gibbering lich...) as well as the dread silid goblioids who adhere to the Deathbringer order make for deadly foes - their witch queen being an especially smart foe.
The pdf also has a monster appendix featuring the CR 16 Flayed Angel and the CR 2 Toxic Mudman.
The Deathbringer Cult gets its own special weapon quality and a certain artifact gets a haul-over, as its true power is unleashed. Even better, we get 4 pages of player hand-outs and 4 pages of maps.

Conclusion:
 Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. layout adheres to the 2-column, printer-friendly b/w-standard we've come to expect from FGG. The maps are brown/grey and the artworks are neat. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks. This is a part of the ST-saga that is rather hard to rate - on the one hand, the adventure is great, the dungeon deadly and the foes iconic. However, while the pdf is good, it also did not have this extreme iconicity I observed with other ST-installments. On the other hand, a lot of disjointed narratives and subplots come together and in rather interesting ways, especially in the metaplot encounters. However, this is also where the format of the serial pdfs somewhat falls short - the mega-dungeon that is the citadel is an organic environment and as such it somewhat suffers from being cut into pieces and, more so than previous ST-installments, this one points towards as of yet unreleased pdfs, which makes running the installment a bit harder. Since the dungeons form itself is very iconic and atmospheric, I'm also not sure whether the adventure would profit from being used to scavenge parts, though the two areas and themes do lend themselves to this endeavor. When all's said and done, this is an awesome installment for everyone following the ST-saga. For everyone else, though, there are better ST-parts out there. Don't let that fool you, though: Greg A. Vaughan delivers and this is once again an excellent pdf - my final verdict will be 4.5 Rudii.









The Hidden Citadel II - Echoes of Despair


This pdf is 50 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of SRD, leaving 45 pages for this installment of the epic Slumbering Tsar series.

This being a review of a part of the final section of Slumbering Tsar, this review contains SPOILERS and I'll encourage any potential players to skip to the conclusion. You don't want to spoil this one.

...Still here?

All right!
This installment has the PCs enter the Shanks of Orcus, where Deathhands and overseers, demonic servants and dread creatures await the PCs. Amidst living quarters, demonic kitchens and mega-swarms of all-devouring rats, the PCs will start to encounter... N'gathau! To those of you not familiar with them - think Hellraiser's Cenobites in even more twisted. But not all is dread and despair in this area, as the PCs may actually find and rescue and as of yet uncorrupted hound archon of the original army of light within these halls. (Who also makes for a neat replacement character - after all, the huge gelatinous cube may have consumed more than one PC..)

That's not all that can be found, though: We also venture into the Templar's Garrison, where deadly black skeletons remain as guards and dread Wight-lord Vai maintains his strict regiment over his section of the fortress's grounds.

Any religion like Orcus needs a steady supply of slaves and thus, the slave quarters of the fortress are also covered in this installment and offer a chance for the PCs to save a legendary paladin from his predicament. They may also clash with a monitor demon (and his 5 new spells), a dread char-goblin lich aand finally, the creations of the Magitect: A unique transmuter-turned construct who has, among others, created a dragon-like construct called "Caustic Purger", Troll-flesh Golems and similar monstrosities.

We get 4 pages of new monsters, 2 new specific weapons and 1 specific weapon quality, 1 page player handout and 5 pages of maps, one of which is a nice, key-less overview map that you can cut up and hand to your PCs - nice!

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, as I've come to expect from Frog God Games. Layout adheres to a classic two-column b/w-standard and the pieces of b/w-artworks are mostly STUNNING. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks to ease navigation.

Surprisingly, the excursion through halls laden with despair provided to be fun and, dare I say it? Amazing. The "Boss"-foes once again are at the top of their respective games and especially the Magitect and his creatures make for challenging, cool foes. the amount of detailed maps also made this installment of ST rather intriguing. More importantly, I think that for people who want to scavenge from the final dungeon of the epic, this installment holds more ready and is not as focused on meta-plot as its predecessor. While it would take some work, I can see the content of this module easily work on its own. Seeing that content-wise there is more desolate, unique imagery than in its predecessor and that I enjoyed this installment, I do have some gripe with it. It is deadly, it is grand - but as of yet, the Citadel of Orcus just doesn't feel as grandiose, as dark, as deadly as the temple-city to me when it should ooze urgency, antiquity and raw evil. While this may yet be remedied in future installments, for now my final verdict will be 4.5 Rudii.









The Hidden Citadel III - The Throne of the Demon Prince



This pdf is 64 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages SRD and 1 page blank, leaving 58 pages of content for the third section of Orcus hidden citadel, so let's check it out, shall we?
This installment of the citadel, as all the others, details a part of the finale of Slumbering Tsar, thus my review will contain massive SPOILERS. Potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
... Still here? All right!
This installment details the Lap of the gigantic Orcus-statue that makes up the citadel - in concordance with the life-giving associations of the lap, it is here that once the huddled, fearful mortal servitors toiled for their undead and demonic masters. In the artisan's quarters, the PCs can not only enjoy a decay-riddled vista over Tsar, but here, in a once-posh restaurant, they will find wolf-spiders to fight and even a queen of the magical beasts to kill. If you're like me and your players once stood against Miska and successfully defeated the Wolf-Spider against all odds, any encounter with these magical beasts feels like a blast from the past. From Potters, to chandlers to all the other craftsmen needed in such a huge citadel, the quarter adds a whole new, almost simulationalist perspective to the citadel and makes the dungeon feel more organic, albeit in a decaying, undead, shambling way. Special mention should be given to the Jeweler and moneylender: The first offers a valuable piece of treasure and nice information on the ultimate fate of one of the most elusive rogues in history, while the other is haunted by dread, deadly time flayers. We should also mentioned the aerial cavalry-animals, spider-eaters and their queen - dread hornet-like creatures with the ability to implant their young.
The entertainment district is overrun by megaswarms of dretches and still boosts some of the decadent pleasures once available to Orcus mortal followers - from the arena to the rather lethal sadist's club (led by a succubus dominatrix), the PCs will have plenty of obstacles to overcome. Not the least will be the bathhouse, featuring not only a witch tree of the vilest kind, but also some elite nagas and their mortal servants. And don't forget Lady Slaeth, the Marilith sorceress mistress of the local brothel: She can be considered the "boss" of this area and her entourage. Information on one layer of the Abyss is also provided in this section, as there is a gateway and it's permanent.
Oh, have I mentioned the game of Kerouz, an abyssal kind of dice-game, in which the PCs can participate against a table of deadly, bored players including a rakshasa, imps, an ifrit... you get the idea. And of course, not only is the game deadly, your very soul is at stake when playing... And never mind the deadly, abyssal minotaur cleric of Baphomet prowling the corridors... The appendices deal with the new dretch megaswarm (including a new artwork), 4 new magic items (3 of which get awesome b/w artworks), 1 page handout and 4 pages of maps, one of which is an overview of the whole area, sans keys and thus suitable to be printed out, cut into pieces and handed to your PCs while they are exploring. I might be the minority, I'm not sure there,  but I really enjoy these overview-maps.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the classic b/w-2-column standard by FGG and the b/w-artworks are stunning and mostly (when not taken from the ToH) at the top of the beauty-scale. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks.
This installment is curious in that it delivers some relief from the undead/demon-heavy installments by showcasing some depravities of the mortal and more relatable Orcus-worshippers still seep through the decay of the citadel, the PCs will be challenged by the lethal adversaries herein. Much to my enjoyment, the now derelict stores make the dungeon feel more organic, real and believable - you can almost taste the levels of decadence within these halls. On the other hand, I felt that mood-setting information, visions etc. would have gone along way to make this particular part of the dungeon even more memorable. As for its stand-alone qualities - if you're looking for a kind of abyssal dungeon city of depravity, you might want to check this installment of Slumbering Tsar out. My final verdict for this installment will be 4.5 Rudii due to this nagging feeling that some of the potential of this area remains untapped - in particular, I would have liked to see a demonic drug den, more depraved remains of the practices of the servants of Orcus etc - something to emphasize this area's blending of the urges of Eros and Thanatos in the most depraved ways possible.








All right, that's it for now, folks! Next time I'm going to conclude the Road To Revolution! See you then! And in case I don't get to write before then: Happy holidays!
As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,
Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody, it's been some time!
Without further ado:

Road to Revolution V - The Usurpers


This adventure is 67 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page back cover, 1 page SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving 60 pages of content, so let's check this out!
This being an adventure-review, this following Review contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right!


With the potential of the prior two adventures ending cataclysmic and the PCs hard-pressed to explain their recurring hand in these conspirations, they are summoned to the castle to attend a meeting of the Blood Senate. Any PCs venturing through the Great City immediately should recognize how grievous the situation is. Arriving at the castle, they will have to contend with a lot of pawns of their mysterious enemy - From one person with a semi-legitimate claim to the throne, a lich, the drunken revolutionaries Hardy Brutes, Ariana Blackwell and just about all movers and shakers of the Great City. Among the people present are corrupt guards, elite assassins, a doppelganger and foes from previous adventures of the Arc - if they survived, that is! The castle is detailed in extensive detail over 5 pages of maps and the e.g. a page of scullery maids and similar NPC-encounters are provided to keep the adventure dynamic.
The opposition of the status-quo wants to spring their claim for the throne and assassinate Lord Erasmus and thus, once the usurpers move, the whole castle erupts in a glorious, messy chaos of shifting allegiances, attacks by Lich Thralls and a complete shut-down - it's up to the PCs to either support the new order, their benefactors from previous books or keep Erasmus alive - each of the movers has his/her/its own agenda and the whole adventure, from the point where the meeting escalates, becomes a sandbox. Generally, the uprising takes place over 3 Phases at the end of which we'll know whether the pawns of the BBeG triumph or not - however the adventure ends, the PCs will have seen the advent of change, as the leaders are occupied in the castle and the BBeG tries to waltz into the city to establish HIS new order, which conveniently diverges from the one of his respective pawns.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are ok, while I did notice some glitches, there were not too many there and they did not impede my overall enjoyment of the book. Layout adheres to the 2-column b/w-standard and the b/w-artworks rock. The cartography of the castle is awesome as well.
I can only pull my hat off to author Tim Hitchcock for what can only be considered a task most daunting - providing an escalation to the last two adventures as well as a complex, believable scenario for the coup d'état that has been in the making since 4 adventures. Even worse, the sheer amount of variables leading up to this adventure make me wonder how exceedingly difficult it must have been to write this adventure. Being smart, the adventure is written in sandbox-style, guided by 3 general phases and thus making running it as versatile an experience as possible. The detailed plans for the major NPCs and amount to detail provided for the castle makes running the Usurpers manageable. HOWEVER: This adventure is still HARD on the DM - given the scope, this is not surprising, but extensive preparation on parts of the DM is a requirement for running this sandbox, and it still can be daunting and is definitely a challenge to even experienced DMs. It is an immensely  rewarding experience for any DM to run, but also a challenge that separates the wheat from the chaff. A matrix of the respective rooms and phases would go a long way to make this adventure easier to run and also facilitate determining the final outcome of the module - as written, a lot of checking who holds which room etc. might be in order. That being said, this adventure is a one-of-a-kind insurrection, a hard-to-run, extremely complex sandbox with severe repercussions and more outcomes than most campaign finales. For experienced DMs, especially people who have run the several adventures in the Great City or a similar urban environment, this module offers a challenge that should be answered with preparation, skill and patience. The result is an epic adventure. However, novice DMs will be severely pushed to the limits by running the Usurpers. Thus, my final verdict will be two scores: For novice DMs, this module means A LOT of work and 4 Rudii. For experienced DMs, though, this is a 5-Rudii module of the intriguing kind. 







As always, thank you for reading my ramblings, Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody,
it's been some time and let's just say it wasn't pleasant on my end. To take my mind off things, let's chek out

Puncture the Blackened Vein


This adventure is a whopping 71 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving 64 pages for the fourth installment of the Road to Revolution campaign arc.
This being an adventure review, the following contains massive SPOILERS.
Potential players might want to jump to the conclusion. Still here? .... Seriously, you don't want to SPOIL this one. ...
All right! How does one Top the potentially furious finale of a Dock Ward set ablaze? And how does one do it with the blandest (at least in my opinion) ward of the Great City? A Kortezian Clan, Gimbros, sees the Great City as the promised land of their patron deity W'Jur and a female scion of said clan has lately made the acquaintance of Azindralean loyalists and over them, started manipulating a helmate of Adhelmus Oxda called Bizby Eialla, servant to the patron god of the oppressors to take the fall for the things to come...
Be it via the broadsides or one of their various employers from earlier installments of RtR, the PCs are pointed towards Erromin's (also known as The Crusader's Inn, including a detailed map) where the adventure might kick off with a brawl - hopefully the PCs are smart enough to talk the crowd down and gain their trust. After some good brawling and/or investigating, the PCs are pointed towards the Holy Smokes, a hookah-café that doubles as the favorite hangout for the scions of Clan Gimbros, a rather powerful group of adventurers (including a flesh-golem disguised as another one of the crew who is not only smarter and deadlier, but has a literal heart of gold) called Brandy-Foxes. The group of Gimbros is led by Larina Beltimont-Gimbros and after an immaculate conversation of misinformation she send the PCs off to the warehouse where the masques for Adhelmus Oxda's impending, solemn Masque are  kept. The two-story warehouse gets very detailed maps featuring huge chains to pull up papier-mâché floats and even cut out versions of the chains for use as impromptu, slow, but deadly weapons. Why would the PCs do that? Well, their breaking into the ware-house is a set-up and legendary enforcer of Adhelmus Oxda, Bonnabel Treach attacks with his hypnosimians, mistaking them for accomplices of Bizby. This encounter is simply awesome, evoking not only the feeling of fighting a smart, well-trained troupe of elite-enforcers in a unique location, but also offers cool environmental hazards. If they survive, negotiate, defeat etc. Bonnabel, they'll have some questions and be none the wiser, returning to the Holy Smokes.
Back at the Hookah lounge, they'll have to eventually deal with Reth Grimbos, one of the Brnady Foxes and his animated opium-fumes-spilling Hookahs. Once they defeat him (and find 2 of the copious handouts provided), they'll have to attend the great and solemn masque of Adhelmus Oxda to find Bizby.
In a great piece of meta-humor and twisting of roleplaying clichés, Bizby is clad in a red herring costume and the encounter that has the PCs trying to spot Bizby at the masque is complex cool, and comes with a whole page of complications, culminating in Bizby announcing the advent of Adhelmus Oxda's temple before using a special kind of dust to escape to the sewers, the PCs hot on his trail. Following him through the sewers, the PCs might find the entrance to the legendary Blackened Vein, where the revolutionary, legendary hardy brutes once held their last stand. There, the PCs might find a prominent general's bunker (fully mapped), now inhabited by an underearth man and offering a puzzle-encounter that can be at once considered a nod to e.g. the Fallout series and rather unique in its set-up.
Finally, the PCs reach a (once again, fully mapped)  limestone cavern, where Bizby tried to use a clockwork bomb, just to be interrupted by a dread aberration - whether Bizby is killed or not, has been caught or not - several possible outcomes may come from this. Bizby has the clockwork detonator to the bomb and cripple, the fleshgolem with the heart of gold, stand ready to destroy the pillars of the cavern with brute force, if necessary. Should both fail, the Brandy Foxes launch an all-out assault, making this one of the several possible conclusions of the adventure. But why do they want to blow up the cavern? Blowing it up will kill Bizby, drain the temple ward's Lake Idyll directly into the caverns weeping the PCs along the blackened Vein into a cavern, where the floating, sub-terranean temple of W'Jur while putting the blame on the adherents of Adhelmus Oxda.
After hopefully surviving the flush through the vein and the attacks of the golem, the PCs are flushed into from a waterfall into a huge cavern that is starting to fill with sewage, slowly lifting the temple of W'Jur upwards. The ascent is controlled by 4 huge chains and the PCs, once they have reached the fully-mapped, floating temple will have a climax of the most epic proportions on their hands. Not content with discrediting Adhelmus Oxda, the rising temple features a detonator pole that, during the rise, sets of explosions that will start to annihilate the respective temples of the temple ward, blowing them up from below. The PCs will have to try to save the castrati children choir singing praises to W'Jur while fighting said god's adherents, the Brandy Foxes under the command of Larina and contend with more complications: Bonnabel Treach and his allies attack via hypnosimian-dragged rattan baskets. If that was not enough, a now defunct goddess of slaughter and one of her mad adherents have infiltrated the W'Jur-priests, thus a huge, deadly Zaelamental rises from the sewage and sluge, as the buried power of this goddess is once again unleashed. Have I mentioned the potential for single chains slacking and tilting the temple? If this finale seems awesome, but daunting to run, fret not, for a several pages are provided for you to make running this mega-battle actually EASY and manageable with minimum preparation. I managed to run a flawless finale with just 2 read-throughs of the whole adventure. Depending on the  finale, the temple may rise or not, get jammed in the shaft, the PCs might be wanted fugitives or not and the temple ward might lie in shambles, piety and trust in the gods broken beyond repair. W'Jur may have ascended to the rank of a greater deity due to being the one to emerge from the destruction and lastly, the mistress of slaughter might be on the rise again... The pdf closes with new stats for monsters, to be more precise, the Hypnosimians (CR 2), the Underearth Man (CR 10) and the Zaelamental (CR 13).
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, while there are some glitches, they didn't not impede my ability to run the adventure and stay out of the crunch-information. Layout adheres to the classic b/w-two-column standard and the original pieces of B/w-artworks rock. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks and the handouts are available in b/w and full color and amount to a whopping 7 pages. The cartography, as we've come to expect from 0onegames, is top-notch. Let me come out and say it: As far as investigations go, this adventure is simple, especially when compared with other installments of the Road to Revolution. However, that's the point! This whole adventure is a tour-de-force, a rollercoaster-ride of awesome encounters brimming with iconicity and excitement, offering a neck-breaking pace of extremely smart battles, environments and ideas. The plot to be uncovered is complex and megalomaniacal, but its execution is smart and makes it potentially work. The opposition is no bunch of cackling fools and makes use of their powerful spells and abilities in the smartest way conceivable. While the basic narrative structure of the adventure remains linear, its plethora of fail-safes by the foes, alternate strategies and wide array of potential climaxes and aftermaths ensure that the DM does not have to railroad his players. Then there's the finale. I've rarely, if ever, read or DMed such an AWESOME climax. Epic in location, fighting, strategies, the finale puts almost all movies I've seen to shame. Lou Agresta and Rone Barton have created an adventure that is distinctly different from their last contribution to the Road to Revolution arc and while I adore the former, this adventure is completely different in tone, pacing and design, being very easily transplanted to any other big city with ethnic tensions and some temples. The stellar quality of the Road to Revolution arc manages to keep its lofty perch, resulting in another adventure that would deserve 6 Rudii, could I rate it that high. My final verdict thus will be 5 Rudii and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.



All right, that's it for now, see you next time and hopefully sooner!


As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,
Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody,

last time I announced I'd be back to the Great City and back I am - this time, to stay for a bit!

Without further ado:

Tides of Blood


The third part of 0onegames' Road to Revolution campaign Arc is 43 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 36 pages of content for the third part of the campaign arc.
This part of the campaign arc takes place in the Great City's dock ward and takes a detour from the open, (and inc ase of part 2, rather horror-themed) investigation of part I and II to take us on a rather furious ride while taking into account the different possible endings of part 2 of the arc.
That's about all I can say without going into details, so from here on, the SPOILERS (also for Part 2!!) reign - potential players please jump to the conclusion. ... Still here?
Ok, so this adventure has a hard challenge ahead of itself, seeing that the PCs could have either destroyed or even forged an alliance with the dreadmanse from Part 2, implying two vastly different starting requirements and agendas. Surprisingly, the adventure manages to provide for both alternatives without resorting to reprinting information/wasting space on alternative plots. The adventure kicks off as many others have over the time, by an assassination attempt on the PCs, only that this set-up is smarter than usual and the mastermind behind it has taken the opportunity of failure into account, luring the PCs after the attempt into a desperate fight in a ware-house, from which they are hopefully saved by a street urchin in service to the baroness, a legendary, corpulent madwoman who, after a tragic life indeed, has taken to raising street urchins and teaching them the arts of thievery.
Unbeknownst to the PCs, her erstwhile lover, Blood Senator Vulgrax, is also one of the major players behind the recent upheavals in the city. Note that possibly the senator might be their employer instead, depending on the outcome of part 2. The baroness, however, wants this man destroyed for breaking off their betrothal and beating her to miscarriage for her affair with an unknown soldier, initiating her descent into desolate madness. The PCs are now to invite said senator to a dinner or otherwise distract him so her children can steal the senator's ledgers. However, not all is rosy with the madwoman either and she proceeds to send the PCs after Gulga Feck, dread necromancer and kidnapper, who has allegedly abducted the child with the ledger. Never mind that the baroness has seen to it that Gulga gets his hands on the ledger in order to get rid of him once and for all.
After the PCs deal with the sick necromancer, they finally reclaim the ledgers and get a hot lead: Wiggan the Bold seems to have an insidious plan that will bring the two plot-lines back together again: The man has operated a salvage-operation via some degenerate Fish-people (the Siluri) and an assault on his ware-house will give the PCs a hard time - after all, Wiggan knows full well how to escape through the sewers and a lot of deadly foes await the PCs desperately chasing the escaping conspirator - from degenerate Roachkin  to a Chuul and aforementioned Siluri, they'll be hard-pressed to catch Wiggan. Even worse, when they finally dealt with him, the plan he hatched demands immediate attention: A ship, chock-full with explosives under the magical command of the Siluri is heading for a warehouse of Vulgrax which is conveniently stuffed with alchemical fire, resulting in two possible finales, one of which is the blaze that threatens to engulf the dock ward and the other has the PCs trying to board and stop the ship.
The adventure concludes with a 5-level PrC class of the sewer runner, fluff information on the roachkin and the stats for the new fish-men, the siluri.
Conclusion: Editing is good, though not perfect - I encountered some typos that could have been taken care of with another pass at editing. Formatting is top-notch and layout adheres to the b/w-two-column standard that is both printer-friendly and elegant. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks. The artworks are b/w and generally of good to very good quality. Special mention should be given to the cartography, as each location has its own artwork and if you own the great city blueprints, you get even more out of e.g. the dinner-scene. The adventure feels quite different from its predecessors, which is not a bad thing per se - though I enjoyed them immensely, the action-laden romp we have here is a fine example of good adventure design, managing to provide for 2 different storylines in one adventure and offering a furious finale in which something truly is at stake.
While this makes for a satisfying and nice adventure, it also means that this installment of RtR is more linear than the predecessors and slightly less brainy, i.e. more on the brawn-side than the prequels. The plot also hinges on PCs trusting dubious NPCs or at least helping them, which may pose problems for some groups. In the end, though, this is still an excellent adventure, though not one that can stand up to the astronomic quality of "the Bloody Fix", as it lacks the sheer density of awesome ideas - while there are some (baroness!), the adventure felt just like a "very good" adventure. Be aware that I'm nagging at a very high level and that this is still worth the asking price. However, due to the lack of handouts (which accompany all the other RtRs) and the minor editing glitches, I can't find it in me to give this one the full 5 stars, my final verdict will thus be 4.5 Rudii.




All right, next time I'm going to revisit one of the reviews that still used my old alias, CountCain - namely the 4th part of the Road to Revolution and re-examine the venture to the temple ward.

Until next time, thank you for reading my ramblings, Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody, with Halloween right around the corner, I figured I'd check out 3 vastly different Halloween scenarios for your perusal!

The first one is a rather easy scenario by Tricky Owlbear Publishing entitled

Sin of the Fathers

 This adventure is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 15 pages of content, so let's check this out, shall we?
This being an adventure-review, it contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right. The adventure opens with the PCs getting an invitation to claim an inheritance at a farm in the idyllic town of Shadowfield. Once they have ventured into a carriage and gotten there, they'll have to contend with a rather unpleasant discovery - the  originator of the letter is rather dead and musk-creeperfied and some force wants revenge - turns out, the PC's ancestors have brought a heinous  serial killer to justice and now his revived form (an undead scarecrow) has prepared an extensive gauntlet of traps and assaults to settle the old score. While the town is detailed and even all of the NPCs get their own statblocks (and background stories including adventure hooks!), the basic plot is rather obvious from the beginning, as are the myriad ways open to the PCs finding the cave system beneath the farm that hides the sanctuary of the foe. The caverns, though, are rather interesting, as the traps they contain tend to be on the smart side and all of the encounters use environments stacked against the PCs for tactical combat situations as well as mood-setting elements. The adventure has the distinct possibility of the villain being defeated prior to the final encounter, but offers advice on his rejuvenation for the showdown.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column standard. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks and includes all stats necessary to run the adventure. Artworks are b/w and ok. We get 3 maps, 2 of which (the farm and the town) can be handed out to the players, as they contain no spoilers or annoying numbers that spell out the locations for them - excellent service and adds to the value of the pdf. I like this adventure in that it's simple, can easily be run almost spontaneously and offers a nice first level introductory scenario. That being said, while the writing is atmospheric, I can't see the horror-aspect working well with regards to my players. Why? Because this adventure is very easy. While the traps are rather devious and not to be taken lightly, the main adversary is rather weak and the fact that a special rejuvenation beyond the first per se is not included somewhat drags down the scariness of the foe. Also, the adventure serves the background story/truth behind the assault to the PCs on a silver platter in the first encounter, essentially invalidating any need for investigation and thus depriving the adventure of the phase of rising tension. While this enables the adventure to be run very fast-paced, it also means that veteran players will not be particularly challenged by this module. I know that my players would be done with the adventure in under 4 hours. While you always can complicate the plot, as written it felt too simple for my tastes.
That being said, "Sin of the Fathers"  still makes for a nice evening of roleplaying that probably won't see too many PC-deaths and a neat introduction to a new campaign, especially for less experienced players who want to delve into the horror genre without facing the often rather deadly horror-modules out there. My final verdict will take this into account and be 3.5 Rudii.


Are your players rather experienced? Do they laugh about vampires and similar critters? Want something different? Frog God Games has a rather deadly (even for their standards!) scenario you might want to check out

Saturday Night Specials - Hollow Mountain





This pdf is 48 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 3 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving 41 pages of content for this adventure, so let's check it out!
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right!
The Elves around the Hollow Mountain just aren't what they used to be - in more than one sense. The  once peaceful nomadic wood elves have started raiding and killing humans and other humanoid creatures to convert them to the true nature - something that should give druids nightmares indeed: The elves have resurrected a strange cult that has them growing plant-like mutations like deadly spores and briars. It is these strange elves that now inhabit a forest of petrified mushrooms inside a hollow mountain and that make up the major opposition of the PCs. Their fortress is inside one gigantic petrified mushroom and thus makes for a rather creepy backdrop for the dungeon crawl. The fortress of the elves is well-defended by their tainted nature, their massive capabilities and rather deadly allies (which includes a dragon as well as an awakened tiger who thinks he is a dragon). Have I mentioned the deadly war flowers? Hopefully, the PCs manage to free the erstwhile druid of the tribe (now utterly mad) and  finally reach the hidden temple of the dread cult to reach a highly mutable plane where a deadly, aberrant nature provides terrible hindrances in the PCs final fight: The end the threat of the constant corruption of the nature, they will have to destroy a thing left behind from an aborted version of creation, an utterly disturbing tree-like monstrosity whose mere proximity mutates his foes.
The pdf closes by providing the complex reborn-template as well as a player handout.
Conclusion:
Editing is top-notch, however, I noticed a major formatting glitch on the first map, starting room 20 to 26 there seems to be a discrepancy between the map numbers and room numbers, which is a bummer. Layout adheres to the b/w-2-column standard and the pdf is extensively bookmarked. We get 3 maps and the original b/w-artworks belong to the best you can imagine - especially the one-page picture of the final adversary is just plain awesome in its creepiness. Indeed, an almost cthulhoid sense of wrongness pervades the whole module - author Uri Kurlianchik did an awesome job creating a truly disturbing dungeon crawl with interesting locations, smart foes, social interaction thrown in and an overall feeling of being unwelcome in this dark new world order. In fact, I consider this adventure to be quite deeply-entrenched in the horror-genre - if not for its narrative structure, then for the increasingly disturbing foes the PCs face and the furios final fight that truly deserves the name. However, a warning to players participating in this adventure - you probably will come out of this...changed. And some changes are hard to reverse... My final verdict will be 4 Rudii, as the map/room-discrepancy makes running a section of this adventure slightly more complicated than necessary.

And finally, I know that the economy is tough. But even though financially these are not the best of times, we can still enjoy a quality night of Halloween gaming - Rite Publishing offers us the FREE Kaidan-adventure

Frozen Wind


This adventure is 40 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 7 pages advertisement, 1 page back cover and 1 page SRD, leaving 28 pages of content for the adventure, so let's check it out, shall we?
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to skip to the conclusion!
Still here? All righty!
Frozen Wind takes place in Kaidan (though any monastery/Asian-themed setting will do) and offers what I've come to love from the series - a brand of Japanese Gothic horror we rarely, if ever, see in RPGs.
The PCs arrive at the monastery when the chill of winter/ice-cold temperatures catch up with them (or due to personal reasons) and are shown their sleeping quarters. The adventure wastes no time, as the PCs are awakened by gaps of the dying - frost-coated monks suddenly convulse as their souls are ripped from their body (which coats them in frost in this particular instance) and the PCs are left in a suddenly very cold monastery - all the fires have gone out. The PCs should probably look for firewood and a way to keep warm while figuring out what exactly has happened. Essentially, the monastery is a huge trap as the supposedly benign Kami it is devoted to actually turns out to be a Yuki-Onna who made the founder pledge the souls of the monks to her before making him forget this whole deal. Subsequently, her Koori-no-Oni (Ice-Oni) are the first opposition the PCs will have to contend with in an otherwise rather silent monastery - after all, the monks are now all dead. Once they have concluded this first act, the monks rise from the dead as frozen undead and seek to annihilate the PCs, who should at this point not only be fighting against the dread creatures, but also against the growing cold - survival horror at its best. Somewhere in the monastery, the Yki-Onna awaits them for the first showdown and should they defeat her, she tries to escape and seeks to summon a dread ice-kami which (along round 2 against her) makes for the final showdown. The impending summoning of the dread Kami makes for an additional counter that urges the PCs to keep up the pace and not waste any time - if she manages to summon the huge ice-bear, the PCs will have a serious problem on their hands. The pdf concludes with 3 new monsters (one of which is a template), 6 pregenerated characters (each on his/her own page - ready to just be printed out and handed to your players) and gamemaster aids, to be precise, a temperature tracker and a summoning tracker for the Kami as well as a scoring sheet if you want to run this a convention scenario.
Conclusion: Editing and formatting are ok - while I did notice some glitches and would usually detract half a star/a star, this adventure is free and easily usable as written. Layout adheres to the beautiful 2-column full-color, bamboo-lined Kaidan-standard and the artworks are mostly thematically-fitting, Japanese stock, but do actually contain some original pieces of gorgeous artwork - not something I would have expected in a free pdf! The pdf is also extensively bookmarked. Special mention should be given to the presentation of the monastery, as it continues to change during the course of the adventure - thankfully, the beautiful full-color map helps picturing the monastery. The pregenerated characters all come with special missions they can complete in the monastery and the gamemaster helps mean that you can run this scenario with a minimum of preparation. While this is a convention scenario, it does not feel like one, but rather like a  full-blown, regular adventure, that does benefit from using the pregens, but could easily be run in your home-game. Personally, my sadism will make me reanimate all fallen foes after 1d6 rounds, making this adventure even more lethal, but that's just my preference. What can I say? This adventure surpasses many commercial adventures in quality and atmosphere and is free - essentially a no-brainer, especially at this time of the year. If you're still looking for a nice adventure for Halloween, dl Frozen Wind- it's worth the hd-space and if you like what you see there, check out the other Kaidan adventures - they're awesome as well! Kudos to Jonathan McAnulty, Michael K. Tumey and Steven D. Russell for giving this quality adventure away for free - my final verdict will be 5 Rudii. (If it weren't free, it still would be 4 Rudii, without glitches 4.5 or even 5 depending on the hypothetical price.)



All right, I sincerely hope that you and yours enjoy one of these scenarios and hope you guys all have an awesome Halloween! Thank you sincerely for reading my rambling reviews - next time, I'll be going to the big city for a prolonged stay!


Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody!

It seems like yesterday to me when Lou asked me to write a review of "The Bloody Fix" and more or less gave me the initial impulse to start reviewing - and today, I'll present to you my 400th review on Paizo. Many people have offered kind words to me and I hope my modest recommendations (and warnings!) have enriched your games - thank you for reading!

In order to celebrate this review, I offer to you a review of a rather under-appreciated Campaign Setting that in my humble opinion is a prime example of the great options out there, Alluria Publishing's

Cerulean Seas Campaign Setting

 
This massive full-color campaign is 290 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of editorial, 1 page ToC, 4 pages of index, 1 page inside back cover and 1 page back cover, leaving a staggering 279 pages of content for this campaign setting, but what exactly are in for?
What if the world saw an age of peace above the waves, an era of enlightenment overseen by  a powerful nation? What if said force of goodness and equilibrium suddenly vanished and the surface-dwellers, in their despair and ignorance initiated a cataclysm that sees most of the world flooded, leaving only sparse patches of land unsubmerged?  What if the surface-dwellers went extinct and yet, the world would continue spinning? The action and eternal war between good and evil would continue, but beneath the waves. These are the Cerulean Seas, a world flooded and in the grip of tidal waves, where new races have claimed dominance after vanquishing the dreaded sahuagin and this book follows an ambitious goal - Not only do the people from Alluria Publishing try to offer you an original setting, but also provide all the necessary rules for all instances of underwater adventuring.
Let's see whether they've succeeded in that endeavor, shall we? There's a lot to consider, believe me. Seeing I converted the monstrous arcana Sahuagin-trilogy from the 2nd edition days of old to 3.5 and ran the campaign, I do know that even if you prepare a LOT of magical items/spells etc., there are a LOT of additional concerns to address and this book is wasting no space and jumps in to introduce us to some of the peculiarities of underwater adventuring:
From an introduction to the different light zones, to mechanics to determine tides and even very extensive terrain information, we get a lot of cool new rules, favorite of which for me would be buoyancy -natural air bladders from races to items: The rules presented for buoyancy should be standard - they are elegant and easy to implement: Essentially  buoyancy comes in positive and negative values, either dragging you down or pushing you upwards - including acceleration and drag. Str determines what you can carry until you fight against buoyancy. Combine that with water pressure and currents (which also get their easy and yet extensive rules) and we get a wholly unique experience: Seeing that until I read this, underwater combat felt mostly like flying underwater, this is just awesome - 3d exploration and combat that opens a whole array of new tactics and combat options. Combat will never be the same under the waves and even if you're only planning on having 1 or 2 adventures under the waves, this chapter (especially when combined with OD's Sunken Empires), is absolutely the best resource you can imagine. It also includes  extensive information on underwater hazards ranging from poisons, whirlpools etc. A new condition replaces prone (disoriented) and thrown weapons are replaced with plunge weapons - be aware, though, that not a simple name-substitution has been made: E.g. the splash weapons work in some key-aspects different from their dryland-counterparts. After this chapter on terrain and the basics, we are introduced to the new playable races, all of which come with their own natural buoyancy, information on their depth tolerance as well as the information on attributes. I'd usually sum up the racial modifiers etc., but in the interest of finishing this review this century, I'll just go on to give you a general overview. Generally, the races of the Cerulean Sea can be divided into three general categories: Anthromorphs (4 races), which include cool races like the crab-like Karkanaks and the crocodile-humanoid Sebek-Ka, the Feykith (4 races), which contain Sea-elves, Selkies and Viridian Naiads, the latter being plant-like in life-cycle and mentality. The final category is the Merfolk, which includes the mysterious and alien, deep-dwelling Nommo, the poison-spined Cindarians and the proud, mount-like Kai-Lios. 11 merfolk-halfbreeds are also provided along tables for age, height/length, buoyancy and depth-tolerance. I expected to get lame aquatic variants of regular races and instead found a plethora of well-written, balanced, cool races that ooze unique flavor and thus lend themselves to truly ingenious plots.
Chapter 3 deals with classes and how they work under water and some interesting components and rationalizations/modifications have been made to them: Alchemists for example have invented aqua gravis, a substance to make bombs and potions with and its discovery, manufacture and usage lends a whole new dimension/other was the items work to the whole class. Wait, Alchemist? Yep, Cerulean Seas comes with full-blown APG-support. While all classes get their respective treatment, the two new domains for the cleric (Flora and Steam, replacing Plant and Fire) as well as an one-page domains/deities-list deserve special mention, as do the 18 aquatic animal companions and the new eidolon evolutions. Conversion notes for e.g. Infernal bloodlines etc. are provided as well. The chapter does not stop there, though: We get the new Kahuna-base-class, a druid-like ally of the spirits of the sea with neat spirit aspect powers of 8 different totems - mechanically one of the most interesting spirit shaman-like classes I've seen. Speaking of interesting - the 20-lvl Mariner base-class, focusing on supreme 3d-movement and agility makes for an interesting melee-choice and the substitute for the bard, the siren-class, also makes for a neat design, though the latter could have used more options to choose from with regards to her songs. The base-PrCs are also covered along  3 new PrCs - The Beach Comber, a ranger-like elite, the Glimmerkeeper, legendary rogues and possibly mutants fighting for the downtrodden and the Sea Witch, who is a rather evil and dark PrC for the siren - think Ursula from Ariel in mature and you'll get these nice fellows.
The next chapter deals with skills and feats - jumping from the waves, diving perception beneath the waves and coverage of existing feats help adapting them to the world beneath the waves. The chapter does not stop there, though: 45 new feats expand upon racial qualities (enhancing Cindarian spines and Karanak-claws for example) as well as  dealing with the new environment, improving e.g. Air Bladder class. Surprisingly, I did not find a single feat that felt overpowered or useless - quite a feat! (Pardon the pun!)
The next chapter  deals with underwater currency: Seeing that copper and silver tend to rust, the currency of the seas is based on shell, gold and pearls. Tarde and new goods like the aforementioned aqua gravis as well as alloys for weapons are covered. The new weapons cover both weaponized harnesses for awakened animals and a vast array of thrusting weapons - the tables alone cover 2 whole pages, ensuring that you don't have to arm all your characters/NPCs with piercing weapons. The aquatic armors are also interesting, including for example jellyfish armors as well as clamshell plates. 11 new ships are introduced for traveling on the waves (which seems to be a bit more secure than under the waves) and a huge array of conversions are provided for all the regular items and obsolete ones are mentioned as well. Kelp ropes e.g. replacing regular ones. Extensive lists including buoyancy information for these items have been provided for your convenience as well, as have buoyancy-control items that help you combat updraft. Have I mentioned the phosphorescent jelly-fish lanterns? This chapter, with all the small details and miniscule meticulously pieced together components makes underwater adventuring and societies that much more believable - excellent!
Chapter 6 deals with new magic as well as old one: After introducing some exceptions, we are introduced to a huge list of aquatic spell components, replacing drylander components - I love this list. While it seems to be a small and unnecessary component, I really consider going this extra-mile in detail and depth of coverage makes the approach stand out. APG-fans can rejoice, by the way: Undersea spell lists are provided for all the core and APG-classes and modifications to the spells have also been included in the lists. Over 100 spells are either entirely new or have been heavily modified to work beneath the waves and the two new casting base classes Kahuna and Siren also get their respective spell-lists. Surprisingly, the spells ranging from acidic red algae to black maelstroms are surprisingly well-crafted and none felt like overpowered or a story/game-breaker to me - indeed, some do expand the tactical options provided by 3d-fighting and currents - awesome! The new magic item-section comes with 2 armor and 4 weapon qualities as well as 1 new specific armor as well as 8 specific items, all of which  (with one exception) come  with their own high-quality artworks.
The 7th chapter deals with the Cerulean Seas campaign setting and can be considered a primer/gazetteer of the setting: This section contains racial histories, short NPC-write ups of famous NPCs as well as detailed information on the respective languages spoken beneath the waves. Religion is covered as well, but in a different way from what you'd expect: The council of nine, 9 deities seeking to absorb all other faiths, make for the mainstream religions and uphold the verdicts of "There shall be only 9" - but where there's persecution, there will also be cults, ranging from variations of the 9 teachings to more heretical positions. Two sanctioned cults per deity are included in the respective write-ups, lending further diversity to the pantheon. A vast array of short city-write-ups as well as a page chronicling current events provide ample hooks for the DM to craft adventures around.
Chapter 8 offers advice for Dming adventures under the sea and does a great job - extensive tbales to help you convert both items and creatures to the Cerulean Seas are provided along guidelines for buoyancy and then there's the battlemat-problem: If you've been stacking dice, this pdf has a page of depth-cubes you can print-out and use instead, providing more stability -quick and doesn't take too much time. If you're going for the recommended solution (after discussing some alternatives), we get actually some cool DIY-information: Tracker trees! Templates for the trees are provided both in full-color and B/w at the end of the pdf and the assembly instructions are comprehensive and easy and most importantly: Affordable, relatively easy to contruct and also a nice alternative if you're shooting for a solution for aerial combat as well.

No environment-focused book would be complete without a bestiary and thus, Alluria Publishing provides us with a smattering of new creatures in chapter 9: From Algoids (underwater shambling mounds) to degenerate merfolk, coral shephards (treant-like guardians of coral reefs) to a vast array of fishes, dinosaurs to 9 new kinds of deep-sea song dragons, we get a lot of cool critters. Have I mentioned the sound and steam elementals as well as 12 new familiar animals, creatures like dire lampreys to seacats and several species of sea-titans (e.g. with kraken-tentacles as lower parts of the torso) to original creatures like the mind-controlling, arcane static-producing mysterious slug-humanoids Slurgs and the awakened animal species of animals, the so-called trueforms? The creatures herein add a lot to a given campaign, even if it only skirts the water's surface. 4 simple templates also help you adjusting other creatures to the Cerulean Seas. We also get appendices: Creatures by CR, a pronunciation guide, an index of tables, an art-index, 2 pages of  char-sheet, 4 pages of card-stock minis,2 tracker tree templates, 1 page of depth cubes and 1 page-map of the Cerulean Seas. Finally, as I've mentioned in the beginning of this review, we get an index.
Conclusion: Editing is very good - I noticed only about 10 glitches over 290 pages and all of them were minor hyphen- or punctuation errors. Formatting is top-notch and layout adheres to the two-column standard. The layout. Oh my god, it's beautiful. The slightly blue-tinged full-color pages are accentuated with gold and offer for a cool, unified look. The pdf comes with more than extensive bookmarks, greatly facilitating usage of the book and it should be noted, that size and art notwithstanding, the setting only takes up about 18 mbs, making it still a viable candidate for e-readers. Let me talk about the art: The artwork herein is GORGEOUS. I mean Paizo-level GORGEOUS. In fact, the interior artwork is probably at a level of quality I've rarely, if ever, seen before in a 3pp-book. In spite of having a lot of different artists creating these pieces, the book nevertheless maintains an unified look that is beyond what one would expect from most publications. Have I mentioned that a lot of weapons, ships etc. also get their artworks?
Let's get to the content: The attention to even the most miniscule detail and peculiarity is STAGGERING.  Just about everything has been taken into consideration and lists like the spell-components and their underwater equivalents, the item conversions, the idea of aqua gravis etc. ensure that this pdf does not only provide a blue-tinged dryland equivalent of a setting, but rather an astonishing world that feels distinctively different. Underwater economics, travel etc. - all the aspects of underwater adventuring that had been handwaved at best until now have been covered in a consistent, intelligent and concise manner. Have I mentioned that the amount of letters f the respective alphabets are mentioned in the language write-ups? The sheer amount of fluffy details complementing the crunch is awesome. The new content is almost universally killer, ranging from the new races and their more unique representatives to the new classes. I didn't have a balance-concern with a single spell or feat. An then there's the setting-primer, which provides for a nice political landscape to spring upon your players. Proving that they know how to go above and beyond, the folks over at Alluria have also covered the 3d-combat an its representation with tracker trees to an extent that I did not expect to see. Conversion hellp for the GM ensures that this book will not be limited to single uses or just the material herein, but make it easy to expand the setting with more content.  The buoyancy, deep pressure etc.-rules are plain awesome and the bestiary-section alone, with the resplendent artworks and huge variety enables you to genuinely portray an underwater world. Even if you choose to utterly ignore all setting-specific information, you'll still be left with over 200 pages of top-quality content that makes this book the ultimate resource on underwater adventuring - be it for an extensive period or just a couple of adventures. If you combine this book with e.g. OD's Sunken Empires, you'll be in for a fresh gaming environment that by its rules and premises alone evokes non-conventional tactics, environments and twists of tried and true tropes as well as opening whole new revenues for adventurers. I am rarely blown out of the water (bad pun, I know), but this epic tome managed not only to surprise me with all-around stellar quality, but also with its imaginative potential, its attention to details and the fresh approach to the world beneath the waves. If your campaign world has even one ocean, you need to have this. in fact, I maintain that this book belongs to the rare pdf that should grace just about any shelf of PFRPG-material, as it easily surpasses e.g. D&D 3.5's Sandstorm and Frostburn - it's that good.
I really hope for Alluria Publishing's production hiatus to stop soon, as this pdf is of an almost unprecedented quality and, from production values to content, simply awesome and professional. If all books were like this, I could stop reviewing right now. If I could give this pdf 6 Rudii, I would. Seriously. The 20 bucks they charge for the pdf are a steal and while the pdf will extort a brutal drain on your printer, the downright beautiful end-result will be worth it as this is one of the instances where craft and art of deigning RPG-products go hand in hand. Seeing that I can't give this pdf 6 Rudii, I'll settle for my highest possible verdict of 5 Rudii and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - this belongs to your shelf and I guarantee that you won't regret your purchase.


As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

Hej everybody,

having just completed my final review of Super Genius Games mini-monster-manuals, I thought it would be time to present you with my personal top 3! Without further ado...

Bronze: Engines of Destruction

This installment of SGG's mini-monster-manuals is 14 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 12 pages of content for the new monsters, so what do we get?

The introduction tells us that we get unusual golems and it should prove to be right:

The very first creature is a CR 7 cactus golem, complete with needles and desiccating attacks. It should be noted that the creature is called both cactus golem and cactus crawler - a minor inconsistency.

On the upper hand, we get construction requirements for all golems in this pdf. All golems are resistant to magic and can be influenced by spells in unusual ways and these are no different - knowledge and fight smarting will help your PCs prevail when they lose in the brute-force department - an approach I really enjoy, as it encourages smart fighting and research. It#s unfortunate that no lore-sections are provided for the respective golems.

The iconic, mass-produced CR 1 Ceramic Soldiers make for nice low-level construct threats, complete with speed bursts and shatter-vulnerability - well done.

The CR 10 Gearwork Golem makes for a grinding clockwork nightmare, sundering weapons and disarming foes while rending anything it comes into contact with - the terrible golem makes for a foe the PCs will truly hate for its signature abilities - fighting these will be a baneful experience for any group.

The next creature is again, a rather low CR (5) golem, and a disturbing one at that, the enveloping hide golem - while not the most ingenious of creatures, it makes for a cool critter.

Two golem-variants are next on the list and both are pure narrative gold - the steed (CR +1) and vault guardian (CR +3) golem variant mini-templates that can be applied to any created creature make for some nice modifications - what about the insane alchemist with a flesh-golem-horse-creature, for example? Very cool!

The CR 12-Prism Golem has some rainbow-associated abilities and anyone who has played any incarnation of D&D knows that this prismatic attacks generally are bad news for those on the receiving end. While I usually like the illustrations of Marc Radle, this particular one is rather ridiculous and not one of his best.

The next golem is just what I want to see - imaginative in design and prose, cool mechanics and somewhat disturbing - the CR 8 Reefstalker is a primitive golem made from the jaws of sharks and its serrated defense and bleeding abilities will ensure a messy, bloody encounter your PCs will remember.

The CR 5 Rustmote Swarm on the other hand is the bane of items and metal golems and making it a swarm is mechanically interesting.

Even cooler golems are up next, though: The CR 6 Still Golem who can intoxicate foes via his scalding, alcoholic steam - that's exactly what I'm looking for in a creature: An original concept married to nice mechanics. Come on, how can you say no to an animated Still?

Finally, the last golem, the Void Golem is another prime example of a cool creature: The CR 18 intelligent being is a sentient rift in space, conjured as a proxy and servitor of its dark masters from the void to assist the apocalyptic cults serving their unknowable ends. Slightly cthulhoid, armed with a deadly array of abilities and malevolent sentience, this golem is another winner.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting could have been better, I noticed inconsistencies and minor typos and glitches, which, while not impeding my ability to use the golems, could have been avoided. Layout adheres to the 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks are ok, but didn't make me yell with excitement. The pdf has no bookmarks. Author Sam Hing provides us with a truly excellent array of golems and while some of the golems are not as awesome as others (Cactus and Prsimatic felt a bit bland to me), my only true gripe with this pdf remain the formal glitches I mentioned - for the very low price, we get a stellar offering of cool, imaginative and unique golems that are only marred by the minor glitches and lack of lore sections. My final verdict due to these minor issues will be 4.5 Rudii.

Silver: Kith of the Harpy Queen

This pdf is 13 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, leaving 11 pages of content, so let's take a look at the new winged creatures, shall we?

After one page of introduction, we get the first harpy variant, which at first seemed like one of those "Slap environment X" on a creature-variants. The CR 6 Cave Harpy gets a cool sonar-like scream and blood drain, though, making her sufficiently unique.

The second new harpy is the Glory Harpy at CR 2, resplendent and actually quite civilized humanoids far from their ugly common brethren, but devious nevertheless. The multi-hued wings and captivating display make for cute, yet deadly foes that are essentially made cool via their fluff more than via their crunch.

Father of harpies, Pazuzu, sometimes seems to father especially deadly, demonic harpies, his chosen. (CR 10) Their song is not only enthralling, but also lethal to any listeners and their polearm mastery along their poisonous stinger make them a viable threat.

The CR 8 Pestilence Harpy, a vulture-like harbinger of disease via claws, dust, song and even presence is just plain awesome - with a deadly aura, cool abilities like the cloud of diseased dust they constantly create and a neat write-up, they are a prime example of author Sam Hing's good monster design.

Subtlety is not the name of the game for the CR 14 giant Piasa, whose call can flatten and even kill her foes - once again, the fluff about interacting at head-level with them makes what otherwise would be a good creature a very interesting one. Nice job!

The small CR 7 Storm Harpy glides among the clouds and can call dread storms as well as sleep while gliding in great heights. Again, it's the sparse fluff that lends color to an otherwise well-written, but not too exciting critter - the cooperation with pirates and influence on naval trade are interesting plot points to consider and make them valuable assets and allies for scrupulous foes.

Harpies being civilized foes, that's not where this Mythic Menagerie ends: We get 5 new magic items specially designed for or from harpies: From Feathered Daggers carrying diseases to shields made from quivers, they are neat additions to the female furies' arsenal.

Furthermore, 6 feats are introduced, three of which belong to a feat tree that grants additional wing buffet attacks to flatten foes. Even cooler, Pluck-feats are introduced, offering FINALLY the option for aerial combat I've been looking for: Attacks to temporarily decrease fly-skills with the final result of having plucked foes crash to the ground as well as the 2 cool feats to improve song qualities. The Pluck-feats alone are pure GENIUS and I'd recommend the pdf for them alone.

Finally, 5 new spells (APG-classes included in the spell-lists) are introduced, offering a nice plethora of evocative, flavorful battle-spells: From quasi-real ravens that try to pluck your eyeballs out to a ball of wyvern stingers you can control like a flaming sphere, the new spells are iconic, neat and well-written.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are ok - while the glitches that plagued the line are once again present in relics etc., there have been installments with more of them. Layout adheres to the two-column standard and the b/w-artworks are neat. The pdf has no bookmarks and the creatures feature no lore-sections.

This installment of the Mythic Menagerie-line is literally all killer, no filler - each creature had something going for it and the additional items and spells are top quality. The feats are downright brilliant. Were it not for the editing glitches, this would be a 5 Rudii+ Endzeitgeist seal of approval-pdf. Due to the editing glitches, my final verdict will be 4.5 Rudii.

Gold: Demonic Harlots

This pdf is 16 pages long, 1 page front cover (gorgeous, by the way), 1 page SRD/editorial, leaving 14 pages of content, so let' check out the neat demonic femme fatales!

After a foreword, we are introduced to the first creature, but prior to getting into the crunch, I feel the need to address something - this review is based on the original version, prior to the minor redesign. If the title "Demonic Harlots" and the succubus in the throes of ecstasy on the cover were no indicator enough, I'll spell it out: This pdf is not necessarily safe for work. Although in my work climate there would be no problem with this imagery (some of my colleagues sporting more suggestive desktop backgrounds), I gather that in America people tend to be more sensitive with regards to even vaguely sexual content. This pdf, while featuring mature topics, does so in a mature manner and at least to me, felt not explicit in any way. Point being: I can't really imagine anyone being offended by this pdf, but I have been proven wrong before. Discretion is advised.

That out of the way, let's check out the sultry seductresses who will drag your PC's drooling souls to the deepest pit of the Abyss!

In contrast to the other installments of the Mythic Menagerie-line, we start off with a primer mentioning a succubus-demon lord and the topic of incubi, the male counterparts of succubi. Special mention deserve e.g. the short discussion of preferred demonic genders and how e.g. a matriarchal society would be haunted by more incubi to better subvert the power-structure. It's just one page, but it felt like a nice read nevertheless.

The first variant creature, the CR 10 Agitator has one of the coolest signature abilities I've seen in quite a while - emotional flare enables them to escalate latent emotions into potentially lethal proportions and make any crowd beholden to their chaotic whims.

The CR 14 Cursed of Epithumia is a deadly Succubus cursed by aforementioned Queen of Succubi. Punished for their ambitions, these disfigured creatures can split old scars and ooze molten lead from their ever-festering wounds to make armors for themselves, cover their foes in it etc. A plethora of cool signature abilities is provided, but for the Cursed, these blessings taste like ash - after all, they can only temporarily maintain a facade of beauty and most of the time have to spend their existences as disfigured, tortured creatures.

The next creature is a well-known entity on the Paizo-boards, our favorite reviewer-succubus Dark Mistress, or to be more precise, a race of beings named after her. These fiendish creatures are a blending of shadow demon and succubus, resulting in a new kind of critter with deadly shadow-based attacks - again, sporting not one, but several unique abilities. I bet the original Dark Mistress approves of this fine take. :)

Some creatures are the quintessential shadow entity behind guilds and plans, hiding behind legions of associates. The CR 8 Pupeteer Succubus is perhaps one of the coolest creatures I've seen in quite a while, drawing strength from her enchanted slaves and being able to use their senses. The PCs will have to act smart to catch these wily schemers off guard.

The CR 6 savage Thyiades, a kind of primal succubus focused on consorting with (and twisting) fey with her infernal taint. To make matters worse, they can unhallow whole stretches of land... Neat!

For rather kinky sinners, the tormentors (CR 11) are essentially BDSM-succubi that can have a neat signature curse which makes their victims yearn for damage. Add spiky body piercings and some hex-related abilities and you get a cool foe indeed. Although the tendency to portray BDSM as an evil or destructive act (which it is not - Safe, sane and consensual) in media in general tends to annoy me, this take on the trope of sadistic temptress is mechanically interesting enough for me to enjoy it.

That's not where the pdf stops, though: 5 new feats for Succubi are introduced that range from improved shapechanging to glyph-studded, arcane wings and even an additional stinger attack, which might act as an elixir of love - neat and offers a lot of story-telling potential.

We also get 5 new magic items, which contain a flail made from vargouilles, a retreiver-crown and ENCHANTED lingerie! Yes! (I know the thought of chainmail bikinis is not popular with some folks. For succubi, though? Come on - of course you tend to miss her when the shifting links of chains draw your eyes to semi-concealed places!)

The final section of the pdf provides us with 5 new spells, containing the sheer genius aspect transformation, which lets the succubus bypass some wards and a spell which is storytelling GOLD. Sculpt the Dead lets a caster make a dead being look like specific beings. I can spontaneously come up with about 6 complex investigation plots featuring this spell. Gold!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, this time I noticed no editing or formatting errors - if the increased price comes with an increase in quality, I'm all for it. Especially when the price is still a fair $4.99. That being said, the b/w-artworks are nice and the layout adheres to the 2-column standard. Author Sam Hing has done it - this is the very best installment of Mythic Menageries to date - plenty of content and signature abilities, cool supplemental material, neat prose, no gripes. This is how mini monster manuals should be. My final verdict will be 5 Rudii and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - well done!

All right, that's it for now!

As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.